Creative Genius Podcast

In his 2020 account of his 15 years as CEO of the Disney empire, The Ride of a Lifetime, Roger Iger proclaimed the maxim, “Innovate or Die”. It quickly became a mantra for business executives and would-be executives hoping to emulate Disney’s phenomenal success. Whether or not you share the same sense of passion and urgency for innovation as Iger does, the fact is that some degree of innovation is needed for any business to maintain competitiveness and move forward. Knowing how to apply innovation to your business can be a strategic advantage.

In this episode, Gail talks with consultant Jeff Standridge, based in Conway, Arkansas. Jeff also teaches in the College of Business at The University of Arkansas. He is the author of The Innovator’s Field Guide: Accelerators for Entrepreneurs, Innovators and Change Agents and The Top Performers Field Guide: Catalysts for Leaders, Innovators and All Who Aspire to Be.

Innovation, as Jeff defines it, is “planned change directed at better ways than we are currently doing things today.” He identified three types of innovation that occur in businesses: incremental, breakthrough, and disruptive. Innovation, he said, is happening exponentially in today’s businesses. Much of it is driven by new technologies, such as the digital revolution and AI.

Gail asked Jeff how owners can apply innovation to their businesses. He said designers already have expertise in one of the main tools for innovation, design thinking. Beyond that, he said, first learn what innovation is and how it can impact a business, utilize an innovation process, conduct quantitative and qualitative research to determine what things in your business could be done better than how they’re being done today. Having identified those things and confirmed that they are things that are negatively impacting the business, develop solutions and implement them.

Gail also asked Jeff what key messages from his book he would like to share with listeners. He offered the following:

To hear why Jeff believes innovation and leadership are inseparable and other insights, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e9-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Jeff and to contact him, go to the firm’s website at jeffstandridge.com.

You will also find information about his books and a page with a list of his podcasts and videos. You can also message Jeff through his page on LinkedIn.

Jeff recommended the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni. Both Jeff and Gail recommended another book by the same author, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business. Both are available from online booksellers.

Gail mentioned the book The Obstacle Is the Way: the Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday.

In speaking about their use of AI, Gail and Jeff mentioned a couple of AI tools they are currently using. Gail mentioned one called Granola, a self-described AI notepad for meetings. Jeff recommended a site called Auxigen, a library of AI-driven tools that bills itself as the “the world’s first Entrepreneurial Support Platform.”

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Well, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast. this we have today, our guest, Jeff Standridge, and he is from Arkansas. And we were just sharing with each other before we started the recording today that I also lived in Arkansas for about 10 years of my life. So I’m glad to meet with another Arkansan. There you go. That’s right. How are you doing, Gail? It’s good to be here today. It’s my pleasure to have you. So why don’t you share a little bit about your background with us?

Sure. Well, I grew up in a very rural part of Arkansas, down in Pike County. It’s a very small County. The town was about 1200 people had 28 people in my graduating class in the public school, the local public school. it was not a one room school, but it was a one campus school. So, first grade through 12th grade, we’re all on the same campus. Came to the university of central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas in the mid eighties and, and, after cramming a four year degree and almost six years.

I actually got into the healthcare world, spent about 10 years as a paramedic respiratory therapist on the helicopter team at Children’s Hospital as a professor at the University of Arkansas for medical sciences. And I knew academically, I didn’t want to get another graduate clinical graduate degree. So I got a degree in organizational behavior and that led me into the business world. I spent about 20 years with a company called Axiom Corporation, which was a publicly traded.

Data analytics company, worked all over the world, ran global operations, acquired multiple companies on five continents. And then about eight years ago, I left to focus on growing entrepreneurs in the state of Arkansas. And that’s where I spend some of my time today and created a venture fund to also invest in some of those entrepreneurs and then do some billable consulting with,

larger companies around the world as well. So that’s kind of my story. I’m a granddad of two and a daughter of a granddad of two and a dad of two daughters. And so all I can do is raise girls. So I’m a girl dad, girl granddad. Well, that’s good because we have about 80 % of the people on this podcast that are listening are females. So you’re speaking to the right people. Awesome. Awesome. Well,

I want to start with one of the questions that I thought would be very interesting, which is what is the biggest challenge that you’ve overcome and how did that drive you to what you’re doing now?

I may have two for you, right? So I mentioned in my, in my intro that I crammed a four year degree into six years. I had the academic underpinnings from, from my days at, a very small rural school, but it took me three or four years to actually become a good student, to develop the academic skills. So I had the foundation, but I didn’t have the skills. So I,

First course I ever took was an intro to finance and economics thinking I was going to be a finance major because I had an interest in finance and I made the only D I’ve ever made in my life. Went to college on a music scholarship because I was an all-state instrument player, all-state musician in one instrument, the baritone or the euphonium, a brass instrument. And when I decided I couldn’t major in finance, I thought I would major in music.

And I did that until I learned and everyone at the university learned that I wasn’t particularly talented. I just worked hard. And then after I graduated high school, rather after I graduated college, I purchased the business that I had worked at all through junior high and high school, which was a gas station muffler shop where I learned to change the oil service, the vehicles, fixed flats.

weld mufflers mufflers on. I bought that business and hired someone to run it for me while I was working on the helicopter team at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. And I lost that business after a couple of years and had to dig out from under the the stigma of that but also the debt that was associated with it because I couldn’t once I liquidated everything I didn’t have enough money to pay off.

all of the debt that had been incurred in that business. So I spent the next eight or 10 years doing that. So those three, two or three different stories, led me to this concept that being gritty, being resilient, that failure’s only failure if you quit. Probably the greatest realization I’ve come out with in that regard, went on to get a master’s and a doctorate and.

literally work around the world on five continents doing business. And I now teach entrepreneurial finance in that same university where the only course I ever took there in business, I received a D in. I love that because I think sometimes you have to have those failures. I have plenty of them. I can tell you multiple ones. But I think that really gives you that grit and

Ironically, the name of our company is Pearl Collective and pearls are made from sand or grit. And so it really is appropriate to, or the name of our company, to what you have to go through as an entrepreneur, in my view. Don’t you think it’s interesting that two precious stones, so to speak, in the terms of diamonds and pearls are created with grit and pressure and resistance and heat and what have you? It teaches us a lot about

what it really takes to be successful in all aspects of life. Agreed. So let’s talk a little bit about innovation because that is one of your areas of focus. I noticed that on your website. So what exactly is innovation as it applies to business? Well, innovation, and I have a definition that I like to use and there are parts of that definition I think that are important. First of all, it is planned change. It’s planned or orchestrated change.

that’s directed at better ways, better can be more effective, more efficient, more profitable, easier, but better ways at doing things than we’re currently doing them today or have done them in the past. So plan change that drives better ways of doing things. There are three different types of innovations that we see kind of on a day-to-day basis. One of those is we’re probably all most familiar with, which is incremental innovation.

which sometimes gets described as process improvement or continuous improvement. It’s making those incremental changes that if we make incremental improvements over a period of time could result in massive outcome differences, but it’s incremental nonetheless. There’s breakthrough innovation that is where we take an existing business model and we apply new technology to it, right? So Uber,

Taxis have been around for a long time, but we applied a new technology to it to make it better. Or we take an existing technology and we apply a new business model to it, the Dollar Shave Club, for instance, right? So we take razors and sharpeners and facial lotions and what have you, and we put it in a new business model called a subscription box, and we send you those things on a monthly basis. So those are breakthrough innovations. And then there’s disruptive innovation where something actually gets

displaced, something gets replaced. YouTube, Hulu, Roku, and all of the streaming that’s happening that’s replacing cable TV is an example of disruptive innovations where someone or something gets disrupted. And there are so many examples right now. It’s just mind blowing. How many things, how many industries are being affected by it?

And they’re happening exponentially, right? So you think about AI that’s come online, you know, people have, I’ve heard people lamenting AI is going to take over our jobs. And my response is no, AI is not going to take your job. People who know how to leverage AI, they’re going to take your job. Exactly. Yeah. I use AI literally every day. Every day. Every day. I think we all do. And we don’t necessarily know what we’re using it. Even if you have Alexa, you’ve got AI. So.

Yeah, it’s there and we use it without being aware. I’m surprised. I’m surprised she’s not answering you back here. Maybe she is. Maybe she decided to be quiet since we’re on the podcast. All right. Well, most of our listeners or I would probably say all of them are creative entrepreneurs and they’re essentially innovators in design. So how can designers apply innovation to their businesses? So it’s interesting. One of the

pervasive thoughts in innovation and maybe one of the best models, pervasive models in innovation is a model that originated with creative designers called design thinking. I actually went to an executive course at MIT, postgraduate course that was focused on design thinking for entrepreneurs and innovators. And so it is a

It is a process that is steeped in what’s called empathetic design, which is really deeply understanding the needs of the customer for that, or the stakeholders for that particular innovation and designing it from the outset such that it serves to meet those needs precisely and specifically for those target customers. So I think the creative design world has already

contributed a significant amount to the world of innovation just through the model design thinking. And I use that in all of our innovation sprints and all of our consulting engagements. I’m constantly referring to the design thinking or what’s sometimes called human-centered design that originated with creative design types. Interesting. Well, what do you think the future holds for entrepreneurs? You mentioned AI, so of course that’s going to be a

very, very big for us in the future, but what else? Well, you know, it’s interesting that I think entrepreneurship is only going to proliferate in the coming years. The fact of the matter is already today, 50 % of the world’s employees are employed by small, medium businesses, startups and small businesses. 99 % of all employers

are startups and small businesses. They already account for about 65 % of all new job creation, but about 85 % of all net new job creation. And I only see that increasing over time. You know, the vast majority of business owners today, over 50 % of business owners today are 55 years of age and older. And 10,000 of them are retiring every day. Same.

10,000 of them are retiring every day. And so there’s going to be a massive transition of businesses from first generation owners to second and third generation owners over the course of the next decade or so. And then you, so that’s just the macro economic landscape of entrepreneurship. Then you begin to think about the, the surgeons of technologies that are transforming the way work gets done, where work gets done.

I think the sky’s the limit, quite frankly. Yeah, it’s really interesting, because when we started this business, it’s been 16 and half years, and at year 15 and a half, we went completely remote. So it was really interesting, because people thought it was very odd that we did what we did at that early stage. And I think that, for me, think innovation is just part of my DNA, and I think it’s really essential for our clients.

and the people listening to be thinking about how can you take something and disrupt it? How can you look at things differently? How can you just put a different twist on things? Because that’s what’s going to keep you ahead. No, I completely agree with you. You know, it’s interesting. I worked for that publicly traded data analytics company starting in the nineties. We had a work from home policy then in 1998. Wow. And it was very forward thinking. You had to be a

strong contributor within the organization. You had to be selected to go remote or to go home based. And we reserve the right to call you back into the office if your performance suffered. And there was also a contract that you signed that clarified the working conditions within which you could work remotely. In other words, you couldn’t care for your children and work at the same time for a full day. Now maybe after school is different, but you had to have something.

some type of care option for your kids during the majority of the work day. You had to have an ergonomic chair and a specific area set up with an office and a printer and a telephone and those kinds of things. So we were doing this back in the nineties and it was very, very forward thinking at that time, very innovative at that time. And we didn’t have the Zoom tools, the online virtual kinds of things. We barely had teleconferencing. Even cell phones were not prolific at that time.

No, I agree with you. If I come to the world of innovation from the world of being a corporate change agent, change, organizational change has kind of been my specialty over the years of my corporate life. And it was a very easy transition into innovation because many of the skills, disciplines and processes are very, similar. Well, I think design, you have to be open to change because that’s what it is. Design is change.

But on the other side of this, when it comes to running businesses, a lot of our clients find it very difficult to change what they’re doing in order to have a better business. And it’s not because they don’t want to, it’s just that it’s a little bit scary to make the changes and learn some of the things they have to learn that they did not get in design school. Yeah, most people that have 10 years of experience in doing whatever they’re doing in the business world don’t really have 10 years of experience. They have

one year of experience 10 times or they have two years of experience five times and that’s about it. Yeah, yeah. It’s different. And so I guess I would ask you the question to follow, which is how do you apply innovation if it’s something that you’ve never really thought about before? You know, great question. think learning about what innovation is, maybe doing some rudimentary study on

one or two of the different models or processes for innovation. See, innovation is a process. When we go and run an innovation sprint for a large multinational or a small business, we follow the same process. We start by identifying the one or two business problems that they really need to solve or the one or two opportunities that they really need to seize and move forward.

And then we begin the process of quantifying those. So if it’s a business problem, let’s create a business problem statement. Let’s be very clear of the problem we’re trying to solve. Let’s do some quantitative validation, some credible facts and statistics to make sure that the problem is in fact a problem, number one, and that it’s big enough to be worth the effort to solve it. Then we begin to do some more qualitative customer discovery.

validation where we get out and talk to the people who experienced the problem to the greatest degree and we get feedback from them on that. what we find is once we do that quantitative and qualitative validation, we find that about 60 % of our original assumptions were correct, but about 40 % of them were incorrect. And we re-pivot our problem statement or opportunity statement. And so now we’re pretty crystal clear.

This is what we’re trying to accomplish and these will be the outcomes if we accomplishment. Then and only then do we actually move over into the design phase of designing solutions because we now have a better understanding of what the problem or opportunity is. So many times in my past careers, I would see someone come up with a great idea. I’ve got a great idea. And then they would launch throngs of people behind that idea and.

and tens of millions of dollars to try to bring that idea to fruition only to figure out down the road and dollars and human expenditure of time later that it really wasn’t a problem after all or the way they articulated it was not a problem that could really be solved. Interesting. Well, I think there’s some merit to that and certainly I think your process, I think it’s great to know that it is a process that you follow.

because then it means that it’s something that everybody can use. Everyone can use, learn and apply, absolutely. love that. I love that. What do you think AI will do to the process of innovation?

You know, what I have found and you know, we’ve talked about, we use AI every day, you use it every day, I use it every day. Many times I’m using it, I don’t know, but even more so, I’m using it and I know, I’m specifically using whether it’s chat GPT or some derivative of chat GPT that’s been trained on a particular niche of something. What I have found to the greatest degree is that chat GPT and AI

can really help someone move beyond the blank page syndrome of I don’t really know where to get started. every minute that one can spend learning about prompt engineering or prompt articulation, it really is garbage in, garbage out. And so understanding what it is that you’re asking the AI to do,

communicating to it the expert that you’re needing it to be and precisely the outcomes that you’re looking in its response back to your prompt or your question really overcomes this concept of I’m staring at a blank page and I don’t even know where to start. My experience is things that I’ve I’ve known nothing about where I’ve spent a little bit of time writing the prompt to get it to give me the right outputs. It gets me 75 % of the way there.

with the very first iteration in 15 minutes. And by the way, 14 and a half of those minutes are me architecting the right prompt. And 30 seconds is the AI actually giving me a response. It’s just in terms of efficiency and return on the invested time from me, I think it’s phenomenal.

I’ve been using it especially lately to take notes. And so I’ll do it on Zoom. I’ll set the AI for that. And I also use another product called Granola. So I am able to use both of those differently and merge those together. And I’ve found those to be really helpful. those are, that’s one of my tips for the day. There’s an AI tool out there right now that I’ve actually invested some money into called Oxygen, A-U-X-I-G-E-N.

Aux standing for auxiliary and Jen meaning generative AI. it’s a, what they’ve done basically is they’ve trained the language model on 20 of the top business frameworks that exist out there. And whether it’s the lean canvas or it’s the customer discovery or it’s the, a variety key performance indicators and several other, there are 20 tools out there that are based on some of the best business models and frameworks and

I can spend 15 minutes putting my company in and some of our core products and services, the industry that we serve, who our ideal customers are, and then it will populate the rest of those business frameworks and provide them back to me in a model that can be edited. So in other words, recognizing that it may not get 100 % of the way there with the first iteration, it may get 50, 75 or 80 % of the way there.

It’s fully customizable by the entrepreneur. And it’s been pretty phenomenal at watching these early stage entrepreneurs catapult themselves forward with Oxygen.ai. I’m going to write that down. A-U-X-I-G-E-N dot A-I. All right. I’ll be checking it out as soon as we get off this call today. Very good. All right.

Well, on your website, you talk about innovation and leadership and you say they’re inseparable. And what do you mean by that? Great, great question. I have observed over a number of years of doing this work that if that if I think I’m leading and I think I’m doing a great job of leading, but I’m not innovating, I’m not challenging the status quo. I’m not looking for constantly looking for better ways to do things. I’m not going to be leading for long.

because someone will come and do a better job of what I’m doing than what I’m doing. By the same token, if I think I’m doing a good job at innovation, but I’m really not a great leader, innovation requires change. Change involves people. People have emotions and loyalties and habits. And so if I’m not a great leader, then the likelihood that I’m going to get people to adopt my innovations

and for those innovations to actually stick, it’s not very great. And so this concept of I have to innovate to consistently be a good leader and I have to lead to be a consistently good innovator. And that’s why I’ve kind of articulated the sentiment that leadership and innovation are inseparable. I truly believe they are. That makes sense. I like the concept behind that.

I’ve been reading your book and it’s called Top Performers Field Guide, Catalyst for Leaders, Superstars, and All Who Want to Be or Aspire to Be. And I would love for you to pick out maybe four or five different key messages in there that you’d like to share from the book. Sure. And by the way, there are two that are very similar. One’s called the Top Performers Field Guide and one’s called the Innovators Field Guide. They’re written very, very similarly in terms of short snippets of

tangible information that’s usually told in the form of an illustration, followed by three or four thought provoking questions that guide you individually to the outcomes that that particular passage might be driving you toward. So early in my career, one of the outcomes of the Top Performers Field Guide, and one of the reasons that I labeled it such, is early in my career as a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, I was studying top performers.

What is the difference between top 1 % of performers and the middle 50 % of performers? So middle 50 % of performers are not unsuccessful people. They’re successful people. In fact, they’re the vast majority of the workforce. But what is it that differentiates those top performers from those middle performers? And ultimately came down to this concept of,

sustained success either individually or as a leader really revolves around my ability to balance results and relationships. If I focus on results at the expense of relationships, I’ll be wildly successful very, very quickly. That is until I alienate everyone around me who’s responsible for helping me create and maintain those results and then I lose them both. But by the same token, if I focus on relationships at the expense of results,

People will love me for a period of time until they lose respect for me because I can’t deliver that which I need and am expected to deliver on a consistent basis. so results and relationships are the difference in sustained success. Now, under each of those, there are a number of behaviors, knowledge, skills, abilities and habits.

that enable me to generate sustained results or to create long lasting relationships. And so it goes a little deeper than that, but at the high level results and relationships are the tight rope that we must walk on a day to day basis in order to consistently perform at a high level. The next one I would say is, and I mentioned this one earlier, failure is only failure if you quit. Otherwise, it’s just feedback. And every…

failure if viewed not as a failure but as a temporary setback that is giving us valuable feedback that we can use to adjust our approach in order to produce greater success in round two or round three or round four, then there really is no such thing as failure. So that would be probably number two. I like that, I like that. I think it’s very interesting that you say that because I think about all of the…

Pivots that we’ve made in our business and pivot is a word that’s a little overused these days. But I think that just the reality is we cannot pivot. We can’t really innovate and solve problems unless we have a problem, right? We have to have something to work from. usually it’s not, we’re not trying to fix something that’s going well. We’re usually trying to fix something that’s broken. Yeah, that probably leads me to number three.

in that the only thing required for innovation to occur is a constraint. So think about that. If we have no constraint, there’s no need to innovate. We just keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing forever. But generally, some type of constraint enters the picture, either the market changes, a competitor, the competitive landscape changes, the economics of our business change.

Maybe we lose two top employees. And so those constraints get forced upon us and we have to think about better ways of doing things and that is the definition. Plan change that guides us toward better ways of doing things. That is in fact the definition of innovation. I think those are some great tips. I’m just fascinated by it and I’ve read about the theory of constraints and I find that to be really interesting. there’s a book

I don’t know if you’ve read it. It was probably 2014 when I read it. can even remember. I think it was August. And it was The Obstacles, Way. And if you haven’t read that book, it’s a very nice book written by somebody who is a stoic, really. And it really made me rethink my business. And it made me rethink. And at that time, we came out with a different brand. We literally shifted.

and switch what we were doing and we rebranded our company as a result of reading that. Very good. That’s a good book for everybody to read, which brings me to another thing, is a book that you’ve read and I’ve read and I love, and it’s Patrick Lentzionis, The Advantage. So tell me why you like that so much.

You know, the book, The Advantage, everything about the book screams three things. And they’re the three things that my entire practice has been developed around even before I read Lynchione’s The Advantage. And so it was really validating to me to read that book. And it also fine-tuned some of the more rugged and rudimentary thoughts that I’d had on the subject previously.

But the three things that the book screams around my entire practices built is number one, cohesive leadership. That’s a very clear element of his book, The Advantage. Clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity. So creating clarity, over communicating clarity, reinforcing clarity. So he talks about that over and over. So leadership, I call, mine’s strong leadership.

Clarity and Focus, which is one of mine, which he talks on. And then the other one is culture. you know, a lot of CEOs and senior executives in the 80s, 90s, prior to probably the mid 2000s, really saw culture as something HR did and saw it as kind of fluff. It’s kind of a necessary evil. We got to talk about it, but we don’t really believe in it.

And I have spent a career watching organizations, researching in organizations, leading organizations all around the world. And I’ve observed that organizations that truly innovate, that truly achieve this track record of sustained strategic growth have cultivated within their organization a culture of excellence. And a lot of people think that culture is just the core values that we put on the wall.

That’s the way we articulate kind of our desired culture a lot of times, but culture is really everything. It is those core values. It is the shared norms, unwritten behaviors and norms in the organization that no one really talks about. It’s the degree to which we’re process oriented or non-process oriented. It’s the feeling I have on a Sunday night when I’m getting ready to go to work on Monday morning. And it’s the feeling I have on a Friday afternoon when I’m in my car leaving the business.

All of those things drive, point toward the concept of what the culture is. And we may have this thing we call the espoused culture, the culture we say we have, but the culture in use is never identical. Sometimes it’s close, but at various times throughout the year or two year period or what have you, it kind of ebbs and flows. The culture we say we have versus the culture we actually have kind of eb and flow.

And so I’ve observed organizations that are very clear on what is the culture they’re trying to create. They articulate those in a set of clearly defined core values and other cultural documentation. And they use those core values and other cultural elements and behavioral standards and what have you to recruit and select new employees, to onboard and train those new employees, to promote leaders from

the population of people who embody that culture and who fire people who are blatantly violating the desired culture. Those are the organizations that have truly created a culture of excellence. there are five or six elements, actually six elements that we begin to observe when we’re working with clients about that culture of excellence. And so I think that’s why like Lynne Cioni’s book so much is because it really screams.

screams culture of excellence to me. That’s a great book. I enjoy all of his books. We spend a lot of time talking about the five dysfunctions of a team and we’ve worked with a number of our clients on that. We talked about it extensively. I think it’s very important in culture. You’re right, it’s everything. If you don’t have it or if it’s not a strong culture or if it’s toxic then your company cannot be efficient. There’s just no way.

So strong culture, strong positive cultures through multiple research studies have been associated with increased revenue growth to the tune of about 400 or four times 400%. Greater degrees of profitability, greater degrees of employee performance, productivity and satisfaction, less turnover, negative weak cultures have been associated with greater turnover rates, greater degrees of disengaged employees, that’s employees who quit and leave versus employees who quit and.

or who quit and stay versus employees who quit and leave. More accidents, more errors, et cetera. So the research is very clear about the importance of culture. It is a business discipline, just like finance, just like operations, where early in my career, I would have said that the pervasive belief across companies would be that culture is just kind of something that’s just fluffy.

and it’s relegated to the HR department. I hear you. Well, and I appreciate that you’re sharing that. And I think all of our listeners, if you want to read a book that’s great about culture, I think the advantage is a great one to read. Sure. Well, let’s talk a little bit about who or what inspires you. You know, I was asked this question a few weeks ago on a podcast out of the UK, I believe. you know, I’m

I’m inspired a lot by a lot of people, but I have to say my mother’s probably one of my most inspiring figures. She will be 80 in November. She still works. She was, she still works two jobs, quite frankly, not, not because she has to, but because she, she’s a travel club coordinator for a local community bank. So she takes groups of people on trips all over the country and all over the world for that matter.

and still works three days a week as kind of a business development officer to that group of golden travelies, kind of so to speak. And she’s a realtor, a part-time realtor and a great grandmother, know, et cetera. And, you know, her work ethic is impeccable, but she’s decided she wants to retire in a couple of years.

So anyway, I would say that. And I would also say definitely the women in my life, my wife, my daughters, all three are nurses and or nurse practitioners. my older daughter who has two grand babies, has two babies, grand babies of mine, two daughters, one’s three months old, one’s two years old, works as a neonatal nurse practitioner and she’s a wonder woman, just a wonder woman. Well, not surprising.

comes from a good tree. So in 10 years, what will you have contributed or accomplished and who will you be? So I went through a crisis of calling back several years ago when I was an executive for this publicly traded company. And I asked myself the question, you know, I was going to work every day. had about 500 people in the organization that I led across five continents. And I was, I said, you know, I’m pretty sure

that my creator didn’t create or call me to sell data to marketers trying to better target their consumers. But that’s how I earn my living every day. And so what is my calling? At that time, I was teaching an adult Sunday school class that I’d taught for 15 or 18 years at that time. I was speaking occasionally around the state and the chamber world and what have you on leadership and team development and what have you. And I’d been a professor at the medical school.

I’d gotten some feedback on my teaching then and, and, and, you know, pretty sure I wasn’t called to sell data to marketers, but that’s what I was doing. And so I, I had someone who, was in one of my classes. One time she said, Jeff, you’re a revealer. And I said, I don’t, I don’t understand what that means. And she said, it doesn’t matter if I’m sitting in your Sunday school class or I’m listening to you speak down at the chamber on leadership or Mark and I are out with you and Lori for dinner.

You say things that provoke me to think differently about my home, my life, my work, and how I approach those. So that kind of stuck in my mind and I started exploring where I was getting energy, where I was going home at the end of the day fulfilled and energized versus the kinds of things I was doing when I would go home and feel less than fulfilled and energized. And I started realizing that sitting across the table from…

people that worked in my organization or that worked across the enterprise and other organizations in the company. When I was sitting across the table from them, helping them solve challenges, that could have been work related or we were talking about parenting advice or personal financial advice or career advice, or I was speaking at the chamber, what have you. Those were the kinds of things where I was getting much more fulfilled. And so I came to the belief that everyone has a calling.

For some people, their vocation is their calling. In other words, they earn their living by fulfilling their calling, like my neonatal nurse practitioner daughter, or my pediatric oncology nurse daughter, or my physician son-in-law, or my pastor father-in-law, or whomever. They earn their living by fulfilling their calling. The other half of the world, their vocation supports their calling if they can figure out the connection between the two.

And I realized that that job gave me a great platform to fulfill my calling. And I’ve come to terms with the belief that my calling that I’ve been specifically gifted to create new insights that inspire people to better ways of living and working. so when I figured out the connection between that calling and what I did every day to earn my living, I went to work with a completely different attitude, a completely different perspective. And so,

So that was a long answer to a short question in 10 years. What will you have become eight years ago on my 50th birthday? I left that company to do what I do today. And I believe I made the shift from my vocation, supporting my calling to my vocation, being my calling in doing so. And so I think I’ve, I think I’m there and I can, I intend to continue doing that. I said, I made, spent the first half of my life making a living. want to spend the second half making more of a difference.

love that. Well, that’s great. And I feel like actually was 52 when I started this business and people can do the math. not young. So it was really good for me because this is my calling. And I agree with you because all the other stuff leading up to it was not my calling. And so I didn’t have the passion that I do for this. So I really think that was very beautifully said.

All right. So we always end with three takeaways that you would like people to use once they leave this podcast. Yep. And I’m going to just review a couple of things that we’ve already talked about. The first one would be just revisit that statement on calling. And I encourage everyone, if you haven’t connected with what your calling is, spend some time doing that.

Reach out to me and I’ll share my contact information in a moment. I’d be glad to provide you with a little exercise to talk you through that. But figure out what your calling is and then look for the connection between your vocation and your calling. That’s number one. Number two, if you’re experiencing failure, you’re experiencing temporary setbacks, you don’t seem to just be getting where you think you ought to be getting.

start examining the feedback that’s coming with those temporary setbacks and failures. What’s it trying to tell you about your approach? What’s it trying to tell you about your business? What’s it trying to tell you about your leadership? What’s it trying to tell you about your grit or lack thereof? And use that information to adapt your style and your approach. And the last thing that I would say is, and I don’t know if I said this earlier, but I’ll end with it. Top performers.

invariably have a future orientation. In other words, they look out three years, four years and five years down the road and they get crystal clear on what that five years, what it’s going to look like in three or four or five years. And they put a date to it. So 12 31 20 29 or 20 28 or what have you. I am, I will, I have, I do, right? So they get very, very clear on what the

their life, their business, their job is going to look like in that say five year period. And then they relentlessly work toward bringing that about. And so top performers have a future orientation. So if you don’t know where your life is going, architect it and start moving that direction. my gosh, that is so perfect. I just did another podcast recording with someone and he was talking about having a strategy session with himself 17 years ago.

And he has done all of those things that he envisioned 17 years ago. And I loved the way that he went about it. And he said, I guess it’s time for another strategy session with myself. And so thank you for sharing that. think that was beautifully said. you. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. And we look forward to sharing this. And everyone be sure and check out.

Jeff’s book, Top Performer’s Field Guide or Innovator’s Field Guide. You’ve got both of those and they’re on Amazon and very good books. So thank you for sharing your expertise today and also wonderful books. Thank you. And folks can reach out to me directly. I’m very active on LinkedIn and it’s Jeff Standridge on LinkedIn. Jeff S as in standards, jeffs at innovationjunkie.com or jeffstandridge.com. Be happy to connect with any of your listeners. And we’ll put that in the show notes too.

Fantastic. right. you so much. It’s my pleasure.

Using social media to market products and services is not a new practice. But in recent years it has increased exponentially with the massive popularity of channels like TikTok and Instagram. That proliferation presents new opportunities for interior designers, but it also presents some challenges. With so much competition for consumers’ attention, you need a consistent, coherent strategy if you want to reap the benefits.

In this episode, Gail talks with Darla Powell, director and self-proclaimed Head Wingnut, with Wingnut Social, based in Leonardtown, Maryland, which specializes in providing social media management and marketing services to the interior design and home decor industries. Darla ran her own interior design firm, Darla Powell Interior Design, for many years. During that time, she became interested in the commercial use of social media and how she could apply it to growing her business. Following a break up with her partner, she decided to close the design business and devote herself to helping interior designers use social media to market themselves and their services.

Social media marketing involves leveraging social media platforms to share content, build networks, and engage users with the goal of growing a business. Darla pointed out that while we hear a lot about social media celebrities and influencers and how many followers they have, the best metric of success for social media marketing for businesses is growing reach and awareness. You want to increase the number of potential ideal clients who are viewing your content.

Darla explained that to see meaningful results from social media marketing requires a long-term, organic strategy. You have to have great content, keep refreshing your content, be responsive to inquiries, and be consistent in doing so week in and week out. You are working on building relationships with potential ideal clients. “It takes three to six months of doing everything 100 percent before you really start building up momentum,” she said.

Darla said there was no set formula or pattern for the way one should do social media marketing. It is different for each designer. She said that while, in her experience, Instagram is currently the best platform for interior designers to market on, for some designers LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest can also produce results. TikTok is growing for business use, she said, but is not currently a major focus for her firm.

Darla also talked about the services her firm offers, what type of firm is a good fit to work with her firm, what kind of budget one needs, what qualities to look for when outsourcing social media marketing, and why you need to be able to scale your business quickly in preparation for the influx of new clients. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e8-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Wingnut Social and the services it provides, go to the firm’s website at wingnutsocial.com. You will also find there a link to Darla’s podcast, Designed by Wingnut Social.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Welcome to the Creative Genius podcast, Darla. Hi, Gail. Thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure. it’s pleasure having you. So tell us about Wing That Social. How did that come to be? wow. How much time do you have? My goodness. Okay, well, let’s settle in. I was born. So long, very long story. I’ll make it very short for you. I was a police sergeant for the Miami-Dade Police Department in Miami up until 2017.

And I retired early because I wanted to follow my love for interior design, which I had been doing off and on in an amateur semi professional kind of way over the years. My marketing efforts for the interior design firm, did I say Darla Palinteria’s menopause brain was was pretty aggressive. And I was turned out that I was kind of a savant unbeknownst to me at marketing, digital marketing, particular, social media marketing.

And I had other interior designers saying, how am I seeing you everywhere? You’re in designers today and our ad pro. And I told them, you know, it’s just through my social media efforts, my social media marketing. they said, okay, well here, I’m going to pay you to do that for me. I said, are you kidding me? I don’t have time. I barely have time to do my own. So when I did get really busy with the design firm, I decided, you know, I need to outsource my social media marketing. And I went to ABC marketing firm, one size fits all.

kind of marketing firm and said, Hey, can you do my social and some Google ads for me? And I was super excited about it. And it ended up being awful, really bad. Like the, the creative, the content, their whole strategy was they had zero idea of an interior design business, how it is that we work, what our sales funnels and flow look like. And it was such a miserable experience. And I still had designers coming to me saying, you know, what are you doing? What’s your secret that my wife and I at the time,

looked at each other and said, you know what, there’s a there’s room in the market for this for someone who knows what to do in this niche. And very long story short, wingnut social was born, it was a DBA under the design firm for a while there. And then my wife at the time, which you may have picked up on was at the time. No longer pass. We were about we were running both businesses and really burning both candles at the end, right? We we separated, got divorced, and I had to pick

one, I had a really good business coach. said, if you had to put a gun to your head and pick one, which is kind of violent, I guess, immediately I was like wing nut because it just offered me so much more flexibility, freedom at the time, a lot less headache and mobility. could work from anywhere and knowing my current situation and here we are. So not doing design at the moment, although sometimes I still say, I want to do that again? I figure it’s like having a baby. You you forget the pain and just the beauty of the baby.

But here we are. Winged and social is here. huh. And so how did you become this maven that you are a social media? You just said that you just naturally had a talent, obviously, but yeah, it’s kind of like what comes, what came first? The chicken and the egg, right? So in an authentic way, I just kind of fell into it, right? From being a cop. clearly I’m not really doing a lot of self promotion for being a Sergeant, right? Of the police. But I knew starting a business that I would need to grow my

name, reach and awareness, starting out with the Facebook groups and community groups. And I started teaching myself by, you YouTube studying, going to webinars, going to seminars, going to events and finding out that I had a real knack. And I don’t know you can see behind me, I’m kind of a geek. I have all my little my adult grown adult woman, child, toys, action figures and stuff back there. So I’m kind of a nerd. And I really enjoyed, you know, the the

technical side of it, you know, the social media marketing and it just just grew. I’m just self taught really. But my team at Wingnut, however, I don’t do the actual marketing. They all have their degrees in marketing. So don’t worry about that. you know how to run the business. Exactly. I’m like what I did with the design firm, right? I’m like the big picture person, the rainmaker overseeing all the big picture stuff. But the day to day, the nitty gritty, I’m delegating that.

I like to say I’m the queen of delegation and it works out well. Yeah. Yeah. So what this determines success in social media today, followers engagement. my gosh. Yes. Yes. Yes. And again, I guess this could be a, this could be a 10 hour show. so at the end of the day, the best metric of success for us, for our clients is growing reach and awareness. How many eyes from potential ideal clients are we getting on our

interior design clients accounts, how many leads from their social media are we getting to their sales funnels and that can be their website, their intake forms, their blogs, whatever that looks like for them. How many DMs with direct messages we’re getting from potential clients asking about their services and what it’s like to work with them. Engagement is really important. Followers are kind of important too, as long as they’re quality, right? Not quantity.

because those metrics help to grow the other two things that I mentioned. But there’s, those are the main ones. And of course there’s, there’s all, you know, when I say impressions and then reach and then how many likes you have, you’re kind of, you know, there’s an algorithm there that you have to kind of play the game. But at the end of the day, it’s, it’s a, it’s an investment, right? So you want to make sure that it’s paying off in a way. And those are the three main things that I look for when I go over my client stats or how many website visits are we getting?

You know, the reach and their awareness follower account for me is the last that I look at for sure. Okay. Okay. How do you get to the point where you have lots and lots of followers and how do you do that quickly? I know that’s a big million dollar question. Everybody wants to know that a lot of crying. Are there any hacks? Any ticks? No life yet. Well, okay. So Instagram, when I started Darla Powell interiors,

which is no more. Right. So, I mean, there’s a website for it, but it’ll link you to wing that social. and in 2017 was pretty easy to grow in an organic way. Right. So I went from like zero to 30 some odd thousand followers in a year and a half, something like that. now it’s very difficult because you know, Instagram is owned by Metta and it’s a publicly owned, publicly traded company, right? They want to appease their shareholders and that means making money.

So what they’ve done and they’re doing constantly, it’s always changing is they throttle their algorithm to the lowest part where you can go organically. That’s why you might be seeing like one or two or three or four followers in an organic way. If you’re not using a strategy per month on your account, because they want you to pay, right? If you, if you’re familiar with Instagram, you’ll see you, you see boost this post or, you pay, put money behind this post for some more engagement. And that is a really quick,

way to do it. If you want to throw 20 or $30 behind there, if you want to gain followers, and it can be good or bad and bad because you can just throw money behind a well performing post and you’ll gain some interest in some reach. But it’s better if you can actually go in there and run those ads from Facebook manager and target your audience to your demographic, right?

But that is a nice workaround and you don’t really have to spend a lot of money to do that So that’s that’s like the fast track if you want to spend money, right? That’s almost the answer to everything in life The slow track is to have a really solid strategy long-term strategy for organic marketing and that is to make sure That you have your content pillars down your voice your messaging your positioning. You have your hashtag strategy You’re using SEO searchable keywords in your captions

and being consistent, right? I’ve seen so many clients, not just interior designers, but vendors, architects who said, you know, I tried Instagram for a month or two and it just didn’t work. There you go. Yeah. It’s not going to, know, you have to be, you have to be consistent because interior design is not a small ticket item. Even if you’re on the more affordable side, right? It’s, it’s a lot of money for people and they, you have to have on an average

Like say you’re getting a widget or something, six or seven touch points with people to get to know and like and trust. But for interior design, it can be double or triple that just because there’s so much at stake, right? There’s a lot of money. There’s a lot of, people get very intimidated by inviting someone into their home, right? To judge them, which is essentially what we’re doing, whether we say we’re not, we are not. So that it’s all very long term.

lay and you just have to be consistent, put your face out there, build those relationships with your followers. You can’t just throw stuff up and not respond when they comment. There’s, mean, I could go on forever. There’s just so many variables that plug in to any given account that count for their success, which is why we’re, it’s so important that we do the strategy piece. The strategy is the key to everything. Otherwise, if you’re just throwing tactics at the walls, like

throwing spaghetti at the wall, right? Yeah, you wouldn’t write a book without an outline, right? Of how it’s going to begin, middle and what the end looks like right to you. So marketing is it’s very similar. You want to know what you’re writing in the book, what the plot line is and what your desired outcome is. Are you seeing designers getting a lot of clients from their social media? Yeah, a lot. I have clients that have been with wingnut for

I want to say going on three or four years, but it might be even four or five years now who are constantly getting DMS in their Instagram. And they’ll tell you Julie Anne Hendrickson of Hendrickson interiors is one and she’ll, she’ll be the first to tell you she gets, I might be pulling this number. wouldn’t say like 75 to 80 % of her clients from Instagram, from her Instagram presence. And that didn’t happen overnight, right? Which I’m going back to the long game.

She’s been with us for quite a while. I don’t have her metrics in front of us, but it It took a hot minute, right? And building her up and following those best practices. But now she’s plug and play, right? She’s just coasting on all of that work that we’ve done and we just keep maintaining it and posting. But all the time I have guests on my show designed by wing net social all the time who are getting guests. Elisa Popka is getting, guest clients from Instagram. She’s not a client of mine, but just all the time. And

When designers come to me and they say, well, I’ll give you an example of a recent sales call I had. She came to me and she said, you know, I get all my clients from referrals and I’ve never gotten a single client from Instagram. I went, went to her Instagram to look at it and she hadn’t been posting from Instagram. She hadn’t been doing anything on Instagram. goes, I don’t believe Instagram works. I’m well, you’re, you’re self-fulfilling. Yeah. It’s definitely not working for you. Yeah. So.

Well, yeah, you just, it’s, it’s not like you can, no silver bullet here, right? You’ve got to put in the work to get this, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. how long does it take for a follower to typically reach out to a brand and engage with them? I know you said about seven, seven or up to 21 touches. Yeah. You know, it depends on the something you may have even observed yourself and something’s kind of funny is that I’ve seen a lot of the big ticket interior design clients.

won’t always engage. Right? You’ll be there and you’ll be constant and posting. And then they’ll pick up the phone. This happened to me with my firm, and I’ve heard this from clients, and they’ll pick up the phone and say, I’ve been following me on Instagram for a year, two years, three years, and I want to hire you to do a, B, C, or D. And I’m like, who are you? I’ve never seen you anywhere commenting on my, on my Instagram or anything. so that’s the answer to your question is, who knows, right? It really, there’s no set.

It’s going to take X amount of time because it really depends on who you are as a designer, who you, what you’re putting out as content, your competition, your service area, the nature of your content. There really is no, sure. You’re gonna, if you start posting this with this form, you’re going to get X amount of this, right? Because all those variables are different. Your, your work is different and they appeal to certain clients might be different, might be more niche. There might be less of an audience, but you know what I mean?

So even when clients come to me at wingnut because I do the sales for wingnut and they say, okay, how many followers can I expect after X amount of months? And I said, you know, I would love to tell you that you’re going to get this amount of followers or this amount of leads. And I could, I’d be blowing smoke. Right. And anybody that tells you that run, right. All I can do is give you the case studies from clients that I’ve had and worked with for a while, you know, and that have been successful.

I will say typically it does take anecdotally, right? My experience from what I’ve observed, it takes about three to six months of doing everything a hundred percent, you know, the way we do it with our strategy or just being consistent. Let’s at least start there, right? Before you really start building up that momentum. know, sometimes I’ve seen clients that get their first leads in a month or two. That’s not typical.

It isn’t. So it usually does take about three or six months. It’s, it’s, it’s a numbers game at the end of the day and how many people you’re reaching and, you know, learning your account and your ideal client. But yeah, there, there really is no set. is binary kind of thing. I wish it was and make my job a lot easier. I’m sure. Well, tell us a little bit about what services you provide to designers.

So our first major most popular services are done for you social media management where we do full service white glove, white glove, white glove, white glove, glove, social media management for designers, architects to the trade vendors, furnishing vendors, cabinet makers, that kind of thing. And that is where after we’ve done sat down and done your strategy, which takes us about three or four weeks to research put together, researching your market area, your ideal client, your competitors.

And by competitors, mean in a very, not like in a, you know, we’re out to get you kind of thing because a rising tide lifts all boats. fully believe that. But in the digital realm, you really need to see what your competition is doing because when we’re doing your strategy, we’re determining your positioning and your voice and how you can stand out among that noise. And we’re looking to see what rooms, what openings you have in order to get in there and be seen first.

Right. To be seen first by not just anyone, but by your ideal client, right? Someone you want to work with and do the types of projects you want to do. Okay. And, and I think for a lot of people, they may not, they feel like they should be doing it in house. And a lot of people do even some of the top people. And there is a point when they should start looking at outsourcing when and why should they do that? well,

Certainly when you don’t have the time to do it yourself, right? Because you know, you’re, if you’re out, there’s a rainmaker for your firm or if you have top designers or people you’re paying 40, 50, $60 an hour, you’re making $250 an hour as a principal or more. You don’t want to be sitting on Instagram, right? And wasting that time. You want to have a bigger picture for that. That that’s definitely when you should be outsourcing. When you have enough of your marketing budget to spend to outsource on that for sure. You don’t want to be spending money. You don’t have on.

you know, marketing for your interior design firm, the anywhere from five to 7 % of your growth should be your marketing budget, depending on what you’re comfortable with there. That’s, you know, I, I tried to outsource mine pretty early in the beginning, cause I just didn’t have time to sit on Instagram and it was just me and one other person. So I think your mileage may vary there. We’ve, we’ve done consulting and we’ve done our hybrid plan and we’ve done strategies for firms.

who do have someone in house, like an intern, that to give them that direction to do that. So that’s one way we work with clients as well. So it really just kind of depends on you, your comfort level, your room for the investment and your knowledge, whether it’s your knowledge and expertise on actually doing the marketing, because it’s not a hobby, right? Or if you have someone on staff that like I do with their education and marketing and all of that thing.

So if you do hire somebody full time, like for marketing, you know, Susan McNuggets wants to hire a full-time marketer for her firm to do all of her social media as you’re looking anymore, like 60, 70, $80,000 for that, right? So you have to determine, you know, what that’s, what that’s worth to you. Should you be outsourcing? Should you do that in-source? And we do have some firms that we have grown to the point to where they took it back in-house.

Because we grew them so huge that they actually needed to have a media team in-house to do their own on-site video and all of the stuff that goes with their PR and everything, which I’m not sad about that. I’m actually very proud that we were able to take them there. So it really just depends on you, your comfort level, and where you’re at in your business. Okay. Well, and there are times that

I think we have a lot of our clients that don’t know, should I do social media first? Should I do PR first? Should I hire somebody? What should I do? But, is there a size of firm that you recommend should probably be seriously considering social media outsourcing? Outsourcing? most of our clients are at the million dollar mark starting, right? That’s usually where their sweet spot to where they have enough that they can budget it to have it done well and have it done right. And they’re not wasting their money, but we have.

Like I said, we started with Julianne Hendrickson and she said this on my podcast. I’m not giving away any secrets. She was at half a million mark when she started with us. So it really just depends on you, your profitability, where, know, where you can, how much you want to grow, how much you want to scale, where you want to put that budget counterintuitively. Although this, this is counterintuitive for a reason. Designers who are new to the business or designers who don’t really have a lot of work or reach and awareness or

should be spending a higher percentage of their budget on marketing because you have to grow, you have to get out there. Like I didn’t, I did it myself, but when I was starting my design firm, part of the reasons I probably got divorced is cause I was never off of social media. You know, there were so many hours put into that. So if you equated that to marketing investment, right, it’s a little higher. So yeah, it just, it just really depends. would say that for us,

The sweet spot is probably the million dollar firm, there’s first firms that are a lot smaller that are more profitable. So it really just depends. And if you want to scale. Sure. Yeah. Cause you don’t, you don’t want to have too many clients coming in if you can’t handle them. Exactly. So that is a factor that will happen. If somebody has the option, should they outsource or should they do it internally? If, if you’re just being really honest with them.

Yeah. Well, it depends. It depends on their skills. It depends on how much time they want to spend doing it or how much time someone on their staff can spend doing it. Cause it really is a full time job, even just doing Instagram well and doing it to where it’s profitable is a full time job. And of course you add other channels on there. I mean, if you have someone that has their masters in marketing or their degree in marketing on staff and they’re not too busy doing design work, do it in house, but, make sure that they have.

strategic vision in mind, right? And that does include the positioning, the market research, your competitor research, your content pillars, what that looks like, how it’s appealing to ideal clients, there’s so much that gets baked into there. And it’s a lot, it can be very overwhelming. The biggest pain point that I see from designers who are coming to me are just like, I’m just overwhelmed, I don’t have time, I have no idea what to post, when to post it.

So if that’s something you just don’t want to deal with, you don’t want to be responsible for a W-2 for someone on your staff, I would definitely outsource it. But I would make sure that if you’re going to interview firms, especially for design, that they have experience working with interior design and that vernacular and how to write the captions and what that sales process looks like. Otherwise, you’re going to have a bad time. How do you find the right person to work with you as an outsource company?

to do the social media. When you’re interviewing interior design clients, right, you want to make sure that they’re a good fit, right? If they vibe with you, they’re your kind of people for one thing, you want to make sure that there’s someone that you align with that you want to work with. And you want to look at their history, their experience and other clients that they’ve worked with success stories, referrals from those clients to make sure that they do a really good job. But not just that the feed is pretty.

the bet that they’re actually they have case studies or they have metrics or they have someone that says, yeah, you know, I actually did get leads. I actually did get clients from that. And that requires doing some research, maybe reaching out to some past clients. But it really is. There’s a lot of I don’t want to disparage anybody or be smirking anybody, but there’s a lot of hobbyists that are out there that are purporting to do marketing finger quotes, you know, for

social media and marketing and they are right there throwing up images, they’re putting on a filter, they’re doing the thing, right? People are having content on their page, but there’s no real meat behind it, right? There’s no real strategy. There’s no real outreach behind it. So just make sure that they’re doing growth outreach, that they are following the metrics. They’re making sure that things are growing and not just followers, which seems to be the lowest hanging fruit of the biggest metric, but

you know, how many are website visits up website clicks, are people actually looking diving in deeper? Or is your engagement percentage going up, right? Because that’s one of the biggest metrics that anyone looks for if you’re trying to do influencer marketing, or if you want to get a licensing deal, if you want to be on HGTV, if you want to do anything like that, they’re looking at your engagement rate percentage. For the interior design industry last I checked this might may or may not be current.

The average engagement rate was like 1.7 % or so. like per like, see if you have a hundred posts or whatever, you know, that’s, that’s the engagement rate. And we’re able to get our clients in the four and fives, which is very healthy. And when big corporations look at that to say, Hey, Susan McNuckets, I want to hire you to be our spokesperson for, for this or to design a line for us. That is a huge metric that looking at. They want to see that more than they want to see a hundred thousand followers.

You know, they’d rather see someone with 10,000 followers with a very high engagement rate than 100,000 followers with a 0.025 engagement rate. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, and I think those are valid things for people to be aware of because I think people are so focused on getting number of followers like top line revenue, which really isn’t as important as how much you keep, right? Yeah. So those are some of the things that you should be paying attention to if you’re listening.

Let’s talk a little bit about some of the other software or the other social media sites What’s happening these days with it does LinkedIn work for people does Facebook work for people? What this Pinterest dead what’s going on Pinterest is kind of dead for me. Yeah, it’s not I’ll tell okay So let’s start with you started you said LinkedIn first. So LinkedIn is LinkedIn is really great for commercial interior designers, right?

If you are a commercial interior designer and you’re trying to reach those businesses that might be your ideal client, it’s terrific. But my tip at this time, it could change, right? Is to not really do a lot of work with your business page because you don’t get a lot of reach from your business page. Like, you know, Darla or wing that socials business page. We put stuff out there, but crickets, nobody really cares. Nobody really looks at business pages. But if you are the,

face of your interior design firm, do your post personal page and post business updates from your personal page. It’s an engage. That’s a lot more. You get a lot more traction from that. I don’t, could change in their algorithm, but that is my number one tip there. And if you’re, if your clients are white collar professionals, that’s a really good place. Sometimes it’s a good secondary platform next to Instagram. Facebook is Facebook still relevant? no.

But also, yes, right. So Facebook is really good, we find for smaller firms, decorating firms, staging firms, firms that if you have time to get into those groups, all the little local groups in your service area and comment or get referrals, though, that’s still really kind of important. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of work there to be done for the payoff. Business pages there again.

They don’t really do a lot. Nobody really cares about business pages. Sometimes they’ll go and look. So it’s good to have so they can, you know, verify that you’re real, but no, not so much. Tik TOK is growing. We’ve had designers on the show that have really grown a nice following on Tik TOK just by showing reels of their befores and afters.

As far as from a local perspective though, in your service area, it’s a little more, it’s a little more challenging because you got to make sure you’re doing the hashtags and the, and the local marketing there. It’s, it’s definitely impactful on a national scale. And Pinterest is really, really good. If you have a good blog, right? If you’re really informative, if your blog is growing, if you’re a terrific writer and from the blog, getting traffic to your website from Pinterest, long as you have that.

post on Pinterest optimized exactly so that when they do go to your website, it is exactly what they thought they were getting and they don’t bounce right off. But bang for the buck, even for commercial designers, Instagram is hands down like the runaway train. And you’re trying to money there. Yeah, yeah, for sure. If you could only pick one, it would be Instagram, even if you’re a commercial designer with LinkedIn a hot second. Okay. And how about video over

just regular posts. a couple of years ago, excuse me, a couple of years ago, Instagram was really pushing video, right? Cause they were a feared of the tick tock, right? Cause tick tock was going crazy with videos. So they were really pushing the reels in the algorithm. They got a lot of pushback from celebrities and high, high grand muckety muck poobahs who said, no, put it back to an image source. That’s what we like about Instagram. We want to go see pretty images. So they throttled that back some.

But they still put a lot of weight on video on Instagram. And it’s not just the weight on one thing. It’s a, it’s a combination of weight. Stories get a certain amount of pull. Reels get a certain amount of pull. Carousels get a certain amount of pull at any given time. Static posts, you know, if you’re using trending audio on your reels, what that looks like. And it’s always changing. That’s why we, keep up with that with the metrics every month and we see, you know, okay, this post is working really well. Let’s do some more of that.

Let’s do less of the other and the next month it can be totally different. Well, it’s always changing. All the algorithms are constantly changing. So yeah, I like to call that job security. Yeah, definitely job security. All right. Well, we are almost at the end of our time and I love to ask people at the very end, what are three takeaways that you would like to pull out of what we talked about and share with our listeners?

Definitely the first one is you have to be on social media, right? Unless you’re going to be selling your business next year and you don’t want to do it anymore. You have to be on some form of social media and you have to be that’s one, right? There’s a lot of pushback still and you know, it’s still in the design industry about even being on social to well actually one a your ideal clients do live on social. Believe it or not older. There’s an older demographic on Instagram and people who are high end.

high end clients are people and they go on Instagram. Trust me when I tell you are number two is you have to be consistent. You can’t do it for a month or two, two to three posts a week and not get anything from it and say, well, I tried. I see. I proved it didn’t work. You have to be consistent. And number three, which isn’t something we talked about, which is something that is incredibly important though, especially if you are the face of your business is you need to be the face of your business. need to show yourself.

You need to get on video. You need to talk to your followers as if they were your client. And if you’re not doing that now and you start doing that, I know it’s a scary thing. I still get scared of being on video and I’ve done over 400 episodes of my podcast. Well, when you start doing that and then you start, the clients start seeing you and your personality and they start clicking with you and you’re going to start getting calls that are like, you know, feel like I know you. That’s why I called you. That’s why I want to work with you. I watch you on X, Y, or Z.

I think those would be the three biggest things in the time that we have when it comes to social media, biggest tips that I would give right now. Love that. Darla, great stuff. Thank you for being here and we appreciate your knowledge and you sharing some of those great tips, whether they come to you or they don’t, at least they have some things to take away. Thank you again. ma’am. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. My pleasure.

Thanks Darla for joining Gale on the podcast and sharing your insights on social media marketing. What are you doing for your social media? And did you get any ideas for future efforts? Let us know. Tune in next week when Gale chats with Jeff Standridge, a consultant who is an expert in innovation who will teach you how to apply innovative thinking to your business.

Practicing interior design is highly demanding. So is running a small business. Combine them and you have a perfect storm for generating stress and burnout. You can ease some of that pressure by getting help. Whether you’re a sole practitioner and like it that way or a firm with a small team, you don’t have to do everything yourself. You may not want or are not able to hire an employee or two, but you can get assistance by outsourcing to others who have expertise in areas you don’t have or don’t have time for.

In this episode, Gail talks with Danae Branson, founder of Elite Design Assistants, based in Alexandria, Minnesota. Since the early 2000s, her firm has helped hundreds of interior designers to grow and scale their businesses through a menu of virtual outsourced services. Danae has a background in interior design, but found her true calling was in helping other designers.

Gail asked Danae what kinds of services her firm provides. She said in the beginning they mostly focused on administrative and operational support. But over the years her clients asked for more services. Today, they also offer CAD drafting and 3D rendering, procurement and sourcing, bookkeeping, social media marketing, and project management. She said one reason for her firm’s success is that they are very good at matching clients with the appropriate people, both in terms of expertise and personality.

Danae said many of her clients stay with them for two to five years. Some just for short periods at a time, for example, to cover staff on vacation or during a position vacancy. It makes no difference to her firm. They work on an as-need basis with no minimums.

The main reason clients come to them is that they are feeling overwhelmed and stressed from trying to take on too much. “Every interior designer at some point has to outsource something,” she said. They just are unable to keep up.

Danae said outsourcing may not be for everyone. She admitted that when she started the business, ironically, she herself was reluctant to outsource. However, she came to realize, as do many of her clients, that there are so many opportunities when you start to outsource. Yes, there is always the risk that the arrangement may not work out well. But she said, “With risk comes reward.”

Gail and Danae also talked about how to find quality outsourced services, what to look for when selecting an outsourced service or freelancer, and how to prepare for outsourcing. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e5-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Elite Design Assistants and the services they provide, go to the company website at www.elitedesignassistants.com. You will also find information towards the bottom of the home page about how to sign up for the weekly newsletter Danae mentions near the end of the podcast.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

to the Creative Genius podcast today. We are so excited that you’re here. I’d love for you to start off and just tell us about yourself. How did you find your way into the interior design industry? Sure, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Gail. I appreciate it. Yes, so I have been in the interior design industry since the early 2000s. I was mainly self-taught and I did that for a while while my husband was in construction.

And then I kind of got a quote day job in the financial industry. That is where I actually created a virtual assistant agency. So I was in the financial industry for several years until I decided to get back into interior design around 2015, 2016. And in networking with designers, they were like, wait a minute, you have a virtual assistant agency that’s not an interior design. We think you need to start looking into

helping interior designers and outsourcing. And so that’s kind of where I developed Elite Design Assistance. And that’s where we’ve been ever since. Needless to say, I never did get back into interior design as a designer. I now just focus on helping interior designers grow and scale their businesses and their outsourcing. Well, that is a lot. it’s a great background that you have because you do understand the industry. You’ve been in it. You’ve done it.

and then you’re jumping in to assist people that are needing to scale, which is of course what we do as well. And it is definitely different to be thinking about how do you do this with somebody that you outsource to versus having somebody in-house. So we’ll dive into that quite a bit in our conversation today, but I think to me, that’s a great place to start for people who are fairly new to the business.

and they don’t have maybe the payroll capacity to handle somebody full time. So there’s definitely a lot of good to what you’re doing. Well, let’s really talk a little bit too about some of the things that you’ve experienced. For example, what is one of the biggest challenges that you’ve overcome? Sure, for me,

That is, it’s kind of ironic because I do help people outsource. I mean, that’s what I do for a living and I’m very good at it. But I look at my own business. I had an issue with that. And I think it was because I spent so much time making sure my clients were well taken care of and doing all of putting in all of the hours, all of the time and the energy into their businesses. It’s kind of like when you become a first time parent and you spend all this time on your child and then you step back and think, wow.

It really benefits the child if I take care of myself. It’s the same thing in your business. I think so many business owners focus on their clients and that excellent customer service and what they’re doing that they don’t really look at their own business and take care of it as well. And so it sounds like I said, extremely ironic, but I really had to learn how to outsource and let go of the tasks in my own business so that I could continue to grow and scale to better help and serve all of my interior design clients.

Okay. And so that, going back to what you just said before this too, and our earlier question, you started this business as a result of just networking with other designers. So that’s really interesting that, you, you went this direction. Do you miss interior design? I don’t, I mean, I love still being involved to a point, but I don’t miss, I love working with designers. I guess that’s where I should say I,

I really love working with designers and that are the type, those are the type of people that I actually hire for my business. Most all of them were interior designers at one point or went to school for interior design. And they really fell in love with the idea with helping and supporting interior designers and not having their own clients. And I guess that’s where I kind of fell into. So I love this business because I can work with designers. I can work with the virtual design assistants, but I’m not actively working with my own clients.

in a design process. Well, I think you and I are alike there because I actually prefer the business part of the business. And this end of it is so much more fascinating to me. So to me, what I’m hearing is you’re more of the tactical on the back end for the business. You’re providing the tactical people to get things done, executing things for the person that’s running the firm. We’re more on the strategic end where we’re teaching people how to

think about their business, how to scale their business from an intellectual viewpoint. And then you’re helping them actually make that happen. So this is kind of a nice little blend of our two businesses. So let’s talk a little bit about the services that you provide to the industry. were talking about hiring people who had run their own interior design business. So what are some of the things they provide?

Yeah, so there are a lot of services. I would say the most popular people come to us for is anything admin. So all of your backend office tasks, your procurement, your sourcing, 3D renders, CAD drafting, bookkeeping, social media marketing, project management, operations. It’s really anything that can be done virtually. When we started, we maybe only offered three or four services, but as we grew and our clients

We’re interested in getting more services because of how well we are at matching with the appropriate people that will really help them in their business. They wanted us to start adding more services. And so we’ve grown to quite a few. We even have somebody who helps with influencer support, which is really a lot more in the social media marketing, kind of leveraging those designers that have a lot of followers. great. Well, that’s an interesting little part of the niche too. Yeah, that’s a big job.

Social media is not easy to outsource. So let’s go off on that tangent for a second. So how do you do that? Because the voice of the designer, the vision of the designer is something that I hear them complain about. We can’t outsource this. Nobody understands our vision. They don’t know how to talk for us. How do you deal with that? Right, so obviously it’s finding the people that have the experience doing it. I mean, I had to do it for myself. I did all of my marketing, social media, excuse me,

by myself for years. Then when I went to outsource it, I had to find somebody who sounds exactly like me. It’s a little bit of research. They take a look at all of your social media, your website, your copy, and they really kind of hone down into what your voice looks like. They obviously can write sample copy. Everything’s approved by the designer anyway before it goes out.

but that’s kind of how we work to get that tone. And since everybody on the team’s used to working with interior designers, they kind of have the design feel, but yes, we are all very individual, unique people. So capturing somebody’s voice is extremely important when you’re hiring somebody for that social media. And do you feel like that is something that you have a system for doing that, or is it just a little bit of an instinct?

It’s a little bit of an instinct. I’ve been matching people since 2009. And for whatever reason, that is just my superpower. And so it is a little bit of an instinct when I’m visiting with people, when I’m finding out what clients are needing and just looking at what’s really going to work best. Cause we look at a whole bunch of different things when we’re matching people. are contracting is as needed because it is the interior design industry. want people to be able to work with us.

within the constraints of their business, but we are also really striving for long-term business relationships. So we do a really good job matching so that if they want to use their assistant or assistance ongoing long-term, that’s absolutely a possibility for them. great. What are some of the biggest challenges that you’re finding people facing in their business? Well, I would say that, you know, interior design, it’s very niche.

It’s multifaceted. You have a lot of balls in the air at one time. So I think a lot of people are just getting overwhelmed, stressed. They’re trying to do it all themselves. They’re busy. They’re trying to juggle multiple clients, multiple projects, and they really maybe know they need to outsource, but they’re not sure maybe where to start.

they might come to us and they need three different people all at once where we try to get them to prioritize the tasks and maybe start with one person and we grow from there. But as you know, interior design’s a multifaceted business. There’s a lot of things going on and a lot of times interior designers just get to that breaking point where they’re like, I need help. I need to regain the passion for my business and I need to start outsourcing so that I can continue to run my business and

you know, hopefully grow and scale it as well. Well, I know there are other firms doing some sort of VA services. Sometimes they’re not specialized like you are in this particular industry. But if somebody is looking for external help, how do they go about doing that? Yeah, I would say typically depending on if you’re if you’re needing experienced people, I would look at LinkedIn. I would talk to other designers, Facebook groups.

Kind of do some networking. Sometimes your software platforms that you’re using, like a studio designer type platform, may also have some resources for you as well. If you are somebody who’s interested in hiring somebody newer that you want to train, that would be maybe a college, a local college. But I do tell people to really look for those experienced people if you’re looking for experience, because a lot of times those are harder to find unless you go to a very specific

agency or, you know, firm that does specialize in interior design. Well, we definitely tell people that they should hire people that are experienced. They don’t have the time to train people. If they’re already coming to you because they’re overwhelmed, they’re going to be more overwhelmed trying to find somebody and then trying to train them. So that just makes it even harder than they have to go. They don’t have to do that. Okay. So since outsourcing is a little bit scary, you don’t know what you’re getting.

You don’t know that person’s experience and how they’re going to work with you until you’ve gone through it. What makes a good relationship in outsourcing and what does not work? Right. Definitely what works is when you are open to the idea. Obviously you need to be open to the idea that you’re going to be working with somebody else. I also, tell people, have a conversation with that person.

If you’re collecting resumes, look for details in the resume. Detailed oriented people is what you want to go with. And you want to obviously have those conversations, goals and expectations and make sure that it’s somebody that you’re willing to work with. Cause obviously you’re not going to know. But once you work with somebody, you need to be open to the idea that it might take a couple of weeks, just to kind of make sure that things are kind of ironed out as far as how we’re going to move forward.

I would say the things that don’t work, a lot of times it’s just based on personality of designers and a lot of designers know themselves. And if you know that you’re somebody who likes to have a bit more control over your employees and they maybe need to be in an office with you, virtual assistance is not going to work for you. If you know that you’re micromanaging or you’re a bit more

wanting to do everything yourself and you’re really hesitant to outsource because you’re not sure you’d ever find somebody who’s going to be as good as you are better. You know, those are some things to look at or to at least consider when you are outsourcing because we’re all very different. And some people just aren’t able to sleep at night outsourcing for whatever reason. It’s kind of like, you know, when you’re an entrepreneur, some people are cut out to be entrepreneurs and some people are cut out to be W2 employees.

And that’s kind of how it is with outsourcing. Well, and I think too, you have to know what you want that person to do for you and what a good outcome is. So you need to be clear on the good outcome. And I think one of the other things that I see that is hard for people when they’re not used to managing other people is really having the tough conversations if it’s not going right. And you have to be willing to give people feedback kindly so that they know

that either they’re off target or they’re close, but they need to work on improving something because if they don’t do that, then they’re not being fair to that other person because everybody wants to do a great job. All of your people that work on your team, I’m sure have that same mission to do a great job of what they’re doing. And I think where a lot of people fail as managers is that they just don’t want to have the tough conversations. And they also

think that they can bypass having clarity about what the role and responsibility needs to be and how to go about doing it. So I’m just throwing in a few things from what I observe when I’m working with people. Yes, I absolutely agree with you. And I do tell people, you have to have those conversations. I obviously will hop in at any time if that’s necessary, but it typically needs to come from the interior designer and they need to do it sooner rather than later.

I mean, occasionally they’ll just let things slide and then I don’t even hear about an issue for four weeks and it happened in week one or, you but yeah, just keeping that open line of communications. Communication is key. And I promise that every single person on my team, they want that constructive criticism. They want that feedback. They want to make sure that everybody’s on the same page. Cause a lot of times it could have just boiled down to a very minor miscommunication.

that if an interior designer would have let that virtual design assistant know immediately, then it would have been rectified and there would have not been an issue on going or, you know, going further. Okay. Well, good. Well, I think we’re on the same page with that. I When should somebody begin outsourcing? I say a lot of times just take a look at your business right now. Look at where you’re at and where you want to go because a lot of times people do need to be

again, outsourcing a little bit earlier than they actually think they do. And it’s just that planning piece. You know, know your business, you know what’s coming down the pipeline, you know what you want for your goals. Go ahead and start making your list of things that you maybe find very time consuming that you don’t like to do that you procrastinate. And go ahead and start looking at that. A lot of times there are several tasks that can be outsourced that you’re going to recruit that money and even make money.

from your clients. And so it’s just one of those things that it’s hard to say when you should begin outsourcing. I tell most people just go ahead and look at your business right now, because a lot of times they find things that they can start and then it just makes it a lot easier for them moving forward than to wait to your, to that breaking point of ready to throw in the towel because you’re so overwhelmed with your business that you don’t even know how to move forward or where to, where to begin. Yeah.

It’s painful. I’ve run my own interior design business, so I get it. And, it is a little bit scary to hire somebody, but I promise for those of you that have not hired yet is worth it. And it’s worth it to learn how to hire. You’re not going to be a great manager at the beginning, but you will learn. absolutely. It’s definitely worth it. Sure. So what is one of the first things that they should outsource? most people, depending again on what they love to do,

Most people will outsource either admin first or their CAD drawings and 3D renders or their social media marketing. Again, it’s just based on what they love to do, what they know how to do, what they don’t want to do. Some people bookkeeping, they really need help with bookkeeping. that just kind of depends on the interior designer, what’s best to outsource first.

And almost in all cases, anything that you don’t love to do and that you’re not great at doing needs to be given to somebody else. That would be my rule of thumb. Yes. Cause a lot of people will find themselves procrastinating on the things they don’t like to do. And that’s not very helpful either. That’s the best to get off your plate first. For sure. Those are, that is us indicating that we just really don’t want to do it or we don’t feel comfortable doing it. yeah, it’s a good one.

Is it possible to run an interior design business without hiring employees? I think it’s all based on what the actual interior designer needs. I mean, I’ve seen some interior designers who like to keep a fairly small business, try to do everything themselves. They’re not really making a living at interior design. Maybe it’s, you know, a part-time job, but almost every designer that I’ve seen, even a, you know, a one person design firm,

has to outsource at some point something because they just are not able to continue to keep up with all of the things that go into your design for each of their clients. And even if it’s just a project by project basis, even if it’s a little something here or there, almost always they are gonna need some help at some point. And that is why we do make our contracting as needed with no minimums because we wanna be able to help everybody.

There are a lot of people that will probably be calling you after this podcast. So how do you select that right person for each designer? Sure. So we obviously have a conversation with the designer. We figure out what exactly it is that they’re wanting to outsource. Does their assistant need to know any specific platforms, programs, even specific niches within interior design? We get all that information upfront.

Even communications, I have some designer clients who is like, whoever you get me, I need them to be available on Monday mornings for meetings or, you know, anything. we get all that information upfront and then we look at our team and we start to determine who is going to be the best fit for this designer. we always have the designer visit with somebody first just to make sure they also agree that this is going to be a good fit.

A lot of times we will even send them more than one candidate if they would like to interview a couple of different people so that they can choose on their own. That is totally fine too. But we really try to match everything that we can. Occasionally again, designers will come to us with specific time zones that they really want their virtual design assistant to live in. So we look at the big picture, personality, all of it, and we do our matching that way. And then we always make sure that they have a conversation.

before they even agree to move forward with the service. And typically how long do you, do your people work with a design firm? I would say most of them work, like a lot of my existing clients have been with us for at least two to five years. Sometimes we do have people that will only hire us to cover vacations, maternity leaves.

Maybe that interim between somebody left and we have to hire somebody new, but we got to get somebody in here to help us in the meantime. so those people, maybe we work with six, you know, six months, 18 months. it’s very rare we ever have somebody that comes on and only is working with us six months or less. Most of them are at least in the year or more range. Okay. Well, that’s good to know. All right. Well, where do you see yourself in 10 years in your business?

Well, I definitely want to continue doing what I’m doing. We have plans to continue to grow and scale elite design assistance. We still want to continue to look at the industry as a whole and how we can better serve our interior designer clients as well. We are looking at some alternative ways that they can maybe get in touch with us to get people on board for one-off projects and different things like that, where maybe they don’t need the hands-on matching that we’re currently doing. So that way they have some

different options when using our service. We’re definitely looking to more of the marketing and AI and helping them running their businesses with that sort of thing. So like I said, we definitely are gonna be here to continue to serve interior designers and we will continue to adapt with the industry as well. And we love our newsletter because we constantly are giving interior designers all that information too of what’s coming, what’s new.

different programs, platforms, just the industry as a whole. So we’re going to continue to do that for them as well. I’ve been reading some of your newsletters and I think there’s some good tips in there. What are three takeaways that you’d like to share with us? Sure. First of all, I would love for interior designers to sit back and really consider if they’re cut out for outsourcing. Is this something they want to do? Are they going to be able to do it from a virtual perspective, especially?

Just kind of, you okay with trusting someone else to help you in your business? Is that your personality? Are you going to be able to get over that? I know a lot of people have tried it and they do get over it. I mean, I’m a prime example. I do this for a living, but I had to get over outsourcing for my own business as well. But I always ask people first to look at that. And second, if they are considering outsourcing, go ahead and take a minute and assess your business. Where do you need help? Create those lists really fast.

figure out what you want your business to look like and what are those items that you can outsource. And then you can go ahead and start taking back some of your time. You can grow your business if you like. There’s so many opportunities when you do start outsourcing. You know, you’re an entrepreneur and with entrepreneurship comes risk, but with risk comes reward. And that’s how I tell everyone to kind of look at it when it comes to outsourcing. Sure. Understood.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your expertise today and we’ll be sharing in the show notes about your business. And thank you for being with us. Yes. Thank you, Gail, very much. appreciate it.

People have many reasons for why they do the jobs that they do. Certainly, some may have more options than others. Yet, time and again studies, personal accounts and memoirs attest to the fact that people who devote themselves to doing what they love—even when it involves great sacrifice—experience the greatest satisfaction from what they do and while they are doing it. And often, they eventually achieve high levels of success.

In this episode, Gail talks with multi-media artist Dawn Sweitzer, of Dawn Sweitzer Studio in High Point, North Carolina. Dawn started her arts career in the mid-90s with a product design firm called Notre Monde. She currently designs for a number of top brands, including Banana Republic, Art House Furniture, Crate and Barrel, Anthropologie, and others. Her work includes painting, textiles and other forms of decorative art.

Dawn said one of her key attributes in working for major brands is that she is good at understanding and maintaining the aesthetic of the company. She also works with interior designers and their clients, both residential and commercial.

Gail and Dawn talked a lot about the creative process and how one keeps going year after year. Dawn said she is discovering and experimenting with new techniques all the time. That helps to keep her creative process fresh. Having her studio space, which has separate areas for different types of arts, helps to inspire her. She is surrounded by creative projects and possibilities.

Dawn acknowledged that she did not always have such a high level of confidence in her work. She was concerned about how others might judge it. In time, though, she learned to let go of that doubt and to be content with what she can produce. “If it brings me joy, then that’s enough,” she said. That has given her the confidence to try new things. “When you feel solid in what you’re doing and you share that with a fearlessness, I think that’s contagious.”

Gail asked Dawn what advice she had for listeners who perhaps are experiencing some doubt about their work. She said,

As a final thought, Dawn added, “Stay true to your vision, because your time will come.”

For more of Dawn’s story, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e4-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Dawn and her work, go to her website at www.dawnsweitzerstudio.com.

Gail mentioned the book The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday. You can find out more about it at theobstacleistheway.com.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Hello Dawn, welcome to Creative Genius podcast. We are so excited to have you on today. Hi Gail, thanks for having me. Well, it’s a pleasure having you and I understand this is you are a virgin on podcast, which is awesome. I think it is great to have somebody who’s brand new to it, but you’re such a natural. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun today. We had the pleasure of visiting your studio at High Point in North Carolina at the most recent market.

And we really appreciated your generous hospitality and seeing your space and your whole process. How did you find your path to becoming a multimedia creative? Cause I think that’s kind of what you are. You know, I, as far back as I can remember, I was always a creative person or appreciated the creative process. And, after I had traveled a while and I came back to the States, I’d lived out of the country for about

five years I came back to the states and that’s when I. You know was trying to figure out what what it was that I wanted to do and I started a company. Called no tremont which was an accessory company started out with trays mirrors accessories and then morphed into furniture and while I was doing.

you know, starting that company to supplement my income, I would paint murals and facilitate my income with, with, know, painting murals and stuff. So I, I started back in, you know, the early nineties, mid nineties when I, when I started, and that was with it, it all sort of started with no Tremont, my accessory company.

Well, and you were so kind to show us your process for thinking about how you develop your ideas. And we’re going to get into that in a second. But I’m just really curious why High Point High Point is not a place that one would think would be an artist area destination. Well, that’s a funny story. So, you know, I’d always come to High Point with my accessory company, No Tremont, you know, twice a year. They have the High Point furniture market.

And then I was, I met someone, another artist, and he became my partner and he was living here at the time. And so I decided that I would move here. And that’s what brought me here was that relationship. I found this beautiful studio space, which was an old warehouse, an old mattress factory.

about 18 ,000 square feet. so I found this great space and I just, mean, it sort of blew the doors open for creativity and me to explore different, you know, categories and things. And I just, yeah, so I started, you know, when I came to High Point, that’s when I really started to explore different avenues outside of my company, Notre Monde. What brands do you design for?

So I designed for several different brands. I designed for Banana Republic. I designed for R House Furniture. I do a lot of art for Creighton Barrel, Anthropologie. I’ve also designed in the past for companies like Mitchell Gold, which is no longer existing, but that was…

in the past, but also on a global level. I worked with Harrods in London and higher end brands there. yeah, so I’ve worked with quite a few different brands. Yeah. And it’s so fun to see some of the projects. We had that chance to wander around and see some of the things you’re working on. was really exciting. Did they find you or did you find them? Well, it was kind of both, you know, I’ve been in this industry for so long that

you know, when you’re when you’re working in an industry like this, it’s really, you know, one of the important things is about creating relationships with people. And, you know, in this industry, you know, there can be a lot of movement with buyers and, you know, designers and creators and CEOs and things like that. And I, I’ve always, you know, and I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve always had wonderful relationships with people. And so, you know, we

we sort of knew each other in the industry. yeah, so they would seek me out for my aesthetic and integrity in the industry. And I also, one thing that I think that I’m good at is understanding the aesthetic of each company, is they’re all different, right? And maintaining that aesthetic. think there’s a mutual respect.

you know, working with buyers and collaborating with other creatives when you’re working with larger brands. you work with interior designers directly on their projects? do. I do. love working with them. Yeah, me too. You know, I love collaborating. love, you know, and I also work with their clients as well, you know, and they’re, know, through them, you know, it really is a collaboration when we’re doing

you know, when I’m doing commissions and stuff, because I love the fact that not only the designer, but the client who’s living with the artwork or the textile or the mural, you know, they, they help collaborate and create, you know, they’re part of that creative process, which I think is wonderful. So it’s not only that, you know, we, I help them understand it. So when, you know, they’re living with the art or, you know, that

bespoke piece, you know, they have, they’re part of that story. What type of work is most appealing to you?

Gosh, you know, see, the truth is, is that I’m discovering different techniques all the time. You know, I don’t just work in one medium. You know, I, one thing that I find fascinating is, you know, being a painter and an artist and a creative, but also seeing how that translates throughout, you know, different categories. You know, whether it is, you know, rugs or tabletop or

you bedding, you know, or a wall mural or, you know, because really when you look at what you’re surrounded by, it’s designed, it’s touched by whether it’s a glass or, you know, a table, a chair, whatever. So, I like to work in different mediums and I like to discover how, you know, it usually starts with a painting or a moon board to get.

I get, you know, a vibe and an idea down. And I usually start with I start with a muse. He’s always this woman who, you know, well, is my muse and inspires me. And I sort of live vicariously through her. Like, what would she wear? Where would she travel? What does her house look like? What does she eat?

You know, what is she, what music does she listen to? You know, so that’s, that’s where it starts when I, when I start creating and then I see how, how it translates throughout, know, whatever it is I’m designing. you might say she’s your alter ego while you’re working. Yeah, probably. I love that. Yeah.

I can be from South Africa, I can be from Indonesia, I could be all over the world. Because what really inspires me ultimately is the beautiful cultures on a global level. That really is something that I value. Do you ever get stuck in your process? Do you find that you might start on a project and all of a sudden you don’t know where you want to go with it? All the time.

Okay, all the time. Yeah, and part of it, you know, I think that’s part of the process of a creative. I think you have to get stuck in order to sort of appreciate what it is that you’re trying to do, or what you’re trying to move through. Because I feel like every time I get stuck, it might not be the most pleasant feeling when you’re in it. But as you move through it, you know,

you’re in and if you’re open to moving through it you’re constantly learning like i feel like i have to i have to have it i have to move i have to rethink sometimes i have to just step away and let me for a minute and then i’ll revisit it but there are there many times where i have an idea in my head and it’s not translating the way it did in my head you know on canvas or or fabric or whatever and i have to rethink it and

inevitably what happens is, you know, something comes up that makes it more interesting. You know, whether it’s it’s the dying process or, you know, the way the colors melted together, which was unexpected, or the way the paint hit the glass, and it reacted with, you know, solvents or something, you know, so there’s. So I when I used to get frustrated with being stuck,

Now I sort of embrace it, you know, because it really helps me move through it. And I learn something and I get stronger and there’s more information. yeah, I definitely, I think all creatives get stuck. Well, it’s interesting because you never really think about it with an artist. You just think it just flows right out of them and it’s an easy thing to do. I guess that’s a good time to go on vacation, isn’t it? Yeah. I was just at the beach.

And I’ll tell you what, full disclosure, I was feeling a little sort of creatively depleted. Like have tons of ideas, but I was like getting stuck. And so I ended up going away for like four days with some dear friends. we just, I took long walks on the beach and just sort of spent some time alone and allowed my head to clear.

And it really helps, you know, and therein lies within that simple walk, like, you know, you’re surrounded by inspiration. You know, your senses are open, you’re, you relax, you, you don’t try to fight, you know, making something happen. It’s sort of, you allow it to happen organically, which, which for me is, is a part of the process that I embrace.

because I have a lot of different projects going on at the same time. And so when I pop back and forth to different projects, it helps me sort of step away from one so I can get a little more clarity when I revisit it. But completely stepping outside of the studio from time to time is really helpful. Well, it sounds like it’s very much like life. We all need a break every once in a while. We can’t keep going.

as the old saying goes, balls for the wall, you can’t do that. It’s just really impossible to continue to push yourself that hard. You have to have that space to think and also to let your right brain settle. Yeah, absolutely. How often do you communicate directly with a patron and how often do you work just with a designer to develop your art? So most of the time it’s with a designer. And then what we do, just

What the designer will do once we get to a certain point is we all sit down together and collaborate. The designer sort of facilitates the initial concept or the piece that the client responds to of mine. And then what we’ll do is we’ll sit down and figure out what they love about the piece or for me, when I do their commission. Because a lot of times it could be custom sizes, custom colors or finishes.

And so yeah, so it’s more, starts with a designer and then I with the patron or client. Yeah, then I work with them as well. We all work as a team, so to speak. Well, I’m sure it’s a fun process from your side. Yeah. It’s very much about getting down to that personality of that person and making

some connection with the art that you’re creating so that it really reflects that person. Wouldn’t that be true? I do. And I think it’s absolutely true because we only know what we know, right? So when people come into my studio, I love to have clients come into my studio and see the process because I’m so excited about the process. And I love to share that with them and they think differently.

Right? They look, they sort of turn it inside out the way I do. They don’t just see it for what it is. And I think that’s interesting to them. it’s one of my favorite things when I can share, you know, the different layers and levels, because a lot of people on the outside of creativity thinks, like you said earlier, that it just happens, right? We just are in here creating. And that’s not the case. mean,

literally there will be times where I’m dying fabric and I’m waiting for things to absorb and stuff and I’ll walk over to another area of my studio and grab some handmade paper and start, you know, dipping it in the dye and manipulating the paper with inks and the actual dye and see the way it responds to what type of paper it is, what brushes I use, how long I keep it in the solution. And so that’s always, you know,

learn, you know, it’s always evolving into different things. So like when you guys were here, and I could share this whole process, because it’s hard to wrap your head around, the layers of it. When you come in, you peel it back, and it all makes sense. Like it may start with a painting, but then you see how that translates to paper to fabric to

You know, and that’s what I, that’s what I love about having people in my studio who appreciate that process, especially clients when they’re, you know, they want to surround themselves with beauty, but they’re not quite sure, you know, how to get to that place unless they, you know, say, I want that painting or I want that vase, or I want that, you know, table decor, whatever. But when you see it, then you can start saying, let me add some of this finish to this. And I love that color on that, you know,

painting. yeah, it’s. Well, I think one of the things that’s very exciting about what you’re doing and when you bring somebody to your studio, essentially that becomes part of the story behind the artwork, because people will go to their home and say, that’s really interesting. Tell me about this art or this artist. And then if they can share that experience of getting to know you and your process, I think that is part of the.

Just the excitement for people is to be able to share that. Yeah, I agree. I mean, when I purchase something, whether my bracelet, for instance, you know, it’s a dear friend of mine who makes most of my jewelry. You know, he made this piece as well and all handmade beads and things. This is also a peretti, but, know, and so what I love is I love to tell the story of this wonderful human being who, you know, started with nothing.

And then fast forward six months to a year, he was designing accessories for Donna Karan and Rick Owens and traveling to Paris, working with other designers. And so for me, these are special pieces that I wear every day. it’s important for me to appreciate the makers and the creators of everything that I purchase as well. That’s a great story.

I’m sure you can’t really say that there’s any number one project that was your favorite, but maybe one or two that you enjoyed working on quite a bit. Could you share about that? Well, a couple projects. One of the projects that comes to mind was a project that I did for Katara Hotel in Dubai. So I was commissioned to do 50 pieces for all of these suites.

in this hotel. we did large scale. did a large scale. They were approximately 15 feet by five feet. And I worked with this wonderful company that a gentleman who used to work for Sotheby’s started this company in London. And, you know, I worked with their team of people to complete this project and it was just an absolute pleasure. You know, and I love, you know, I’m fortunate enough to be able to have relationships where I can work.

with these hospitality projects and these global teams of people. And so that was wonderful. I loved everything about that project. And then another project that I worked on, this was about, and I still work with them, but it was about a 10 year project, was a company, a Belgian company called Ethnicraft. And that was, I started,

Earlier I said, you know, I had the company No Tremont. And then when I, I met the owners of Ethnicraft, we decided to develop a whole line of products and it was quite different from what they were doing. And so what it did was it gave me the opportunity to just really focus on the creative side and all the logistics and everything that I was used to doing with my other company. You know, I’ve worn 50 hats, you know, it was everything from.

you know, packing boxes to silk screening the actual product and paintings and doing all that to just really, you know, focusing on, on creative content, building collections and working with, with, know, their development teams. And so that that’s been a pleasure as well. I mean, they’re a wonderful company and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve learned a lot throughout, you know, the years working with them. that.

You know, and all the bespoke projects, have to say, you know, they’re kind of like your children. So I feel like I have like thousands of children out there, even if it’s a cushion or a painting. You know, I take it so personally. It’s something that I really, you know, every single piece that I create, you know, is important to me. You know, and I want to make sure that, that I’m, you know, doing it properly and, and

It’s something that is, you know, someone else finds beautiful and, and, know, they appreciate it as much as I do. It’s a couple of projects. It’s so fun. And all of the things that you’re doing are so different. And that’s what I loved about seeing your studio and seeing your process, seeing the different areas that you worked in. And I can just imagine that you

you shift your energy from space to space, depending on what you’re working on too. my gosh, constantly. am literally, you know, I don’t count myself. should count my steps during the day because they’d be, you know, the tens of thousands because I am literally moving. Well, you’ve been to my studio. So the way I have it set up intentionally is I compartmentalize, you know, I, there’s a dye kitchen.

where I do the weaving and dying. I have a weaver, don’t weave myself, but I design everything and then I dye everything myself and pull all the threads and do all that. But then I have another area where I do smaller samples, whether it’s aged mirror or working on wallpaper patterns, things like that. And then I have my larger studio in the back where I do all the painting. So what’s great, and then I have…

another segment of my studio where I put the finished pieces and start to sort of pull collections together from all of those sort of separate studio spaces. And so, yeah, I’m constantly bouncing around from space to space because again, when I do get stuck or I do feel that I’m at a point where I can stop for a moment and then revisit, I still am being creative. It’s just in a different.

you know, different genre or different area of the studio. And so for me, I have this energy that I just, you know, it’s, it’s, I feel like it’s 24 seven. I’m constantly thinking and, and I look at things in a different way, even, you know, on a rainy day, like today, you know, the clouds are so beautiful. You know, I was, you know, took my dogs outside and I was like, wow, that’s beautiful. I’m doing this whole series of,

paintings that are vistas that are very textural. They’re not really, some could say they’re abstract, but they’re very serene, very simple, but it’s more about the texture and the materials that I use within the paintings. So I find myself now really looking at cloud patterns and colors and things in nature. So yeah, it’s.

It’s, want to come hang out with you at your studio for a month and I want to play with you. You should really, if you’re not doing it yet, maybe, maybe you can do some workshops and classes for that. Yeah. So we, we plan. So one of the things, that I’d like to do and I

is because I do so many different mediums, everything from silk screening to painting, dyeing, you know, all these different things, you know, I would love to, on a more regular basis. I’ve had a couple workshops here and there, but I’d love to do that on a regular basis here because I feel like this space lends itself to that. And it also, you know, I feel like everyone that comes in this space, including myself.

is so inspired because there’s, know, I feel like I could be having a bad day or whatever. And I walk in that door and everything just melts away. And I’m surrounded by everything I love. And, and I just jump in there and just really start messing around and playing around and see where, it evolves from there. And so when people come into the studio, they see that it’s not, you know,

I sort of bring it to earth, right? Like, and share what it is. And it’s really just putting yourself out there and just doing, doing what you love. I mean, for me, I don’t care if you make safety pin lampshades, as long as you’re doing something that you love. To me, that’s just as valid and important as a creative, you know, as creating a sculpture for a museum, you know, or having a painting hang in the mess.

You know, some people would beg to differ, I really feel because I’m not, you know, I don’t have a art degree. I’m self -taught. For me, you know, not only the joy that it brings me and the freedom to be able to create, you know, it’s a really grounding, special place to be when you have a space, regardless of the size that has things that inspire you in it.

you know, then you just, you know, you create and you start making things. mean, psychologically, that gives so much back because you’re putting yourself out there, even if it’s just you in that room, and then you are strong enough to venture out and share it with other people and get feedback. And then it just sort of creates the snowball effect, you know, where, you know, how many times, I mean, I know I have with

with friends and family and stuff where I’m like, my gosh, I had no idea you were a writer or that you sang or that you were a painter or that you, because we all have these massive insecurities, especially around creative things because you’re constantly judged. You know, I think that’s just part of our society. But when you feel solid in what you’re doing and you share that with a fearlessness, you know, I think it’s contagious, you know.

I love that. And that imposter syndrome, it affects so many different people. And it sounds like you’ve had a little bit of it because you weren’t a trained artist, but you are a naturally gifted person that has an eye that can bring that to the table. And to me, that’s not an imposter, that’s a creator. And so you are a creator. So I love it and I love hearing that.

Maybe you still had a little struggle with that. And I guess all creatives have to have a little struggle internally. think, think you do. I think that’s just part of being a human being, you know? And I think when I got past that I had to be something for somebody else, this was years ago, but I struggled with that for a while, that I wasn’t good enough, that it wasn’t, you know, I’m not Picasso. I’m not, you know, some, but what for me, it’s enough.

If it brings me joy and I feel good about what I’m doing, that’s enough. And if people around me want to share that or be a part of it, what a beautiful thing that is. And so when I stopped doing what I do for other people and just, you know, went into myself and did it for myself, that’s when the good stuff came. That’s when it really started to evolve, you know, because it’s, funny when you try to rep.

know, one thing that I am fascinated by and love to do as a creative is I love to meld the concept of art and commerce. You know, there are some artists that think that, my gosh, it’s like sacrilegious. How dare you sell your artwork as a reproduction or put artwork on a rug or a bed sheet? For me, it’s all art, you know? you know, I’m not in a position to buy a hundred thousand dollar original painting.

You know, but I do love this beautiful textile that was created by artisans that I can appreciate, right? So, so I feel like if you just come from a place of authenticity, I think that’s, and you allow yourself to make the mistakes and fail and succeed and fail. And for me, that’s where most of my successes come from are my failures, because you’re just constantly putting yourself out there.

So it’s a pleasure for me to fail. You know, it’s not a bad word. If you’re failing, you’re doing something right. was just going to say one of my favorite books is The Obstacle is the Way. And it really is exactly that. If you hit the obstacle, that is the direction you need to be going. Yeah, it’s true. And it’s true. I think, you know, part of struggling through that and allowing yourself grace

to just be with something, if you’re invested in it on some level, something good comes out of it, right? And it doesn’t have to be accepted or acknowledged by anyone else. mean, as long as you feel that you’ve put everything that you possibly could into whatever ever that notion is or idea, I feel that that’s enough.

And I think that’s one of the reasons like when I work with my clients, whether it’s like a big box client like Banana Republic or, or, you know, whether it’s, it’s a, you know, a client where I’m doing a commission for their home. I put as much energy into the big box client as I do into the, like into the, the patron that I’m designing something for their home.

For me, it’s about, again, having integrity and doing the best I can do for that particular opportunity. What do you love most about what you do?

I would say I love the freedom that it gives me and I love, I love being able to explore and evolve and learn. I feel like I’m constantly learning literally on a daily basis. You know, I think that’s such a beautiful thing. You know, I, even when I’m stuck, I’m learning, you know, even when I’m soaring, you know, I’m embracing that, you know, cause

You know, what goes up comes down, you know, so just hang on and ride that wave. And I love being able to experience all those emotions and in an environment that I create, you know, it’s under my terms. And I think that’s one of the things that I love most. And I love being surrounded by beautiful things. So. And you create them and get to keep.

making them. That’s the best part. Then you can be in love with the next thing that you create. It is funny because when I’m creating, like I’m so into that particular thing, right? And then when it’s finished and it’s created and off it goes, it goes to its home. And then I’m ready to, you know, raise my, create my next child. You know, create that next.

You know, because you really look at it like that, like it’s really personal. You know, some people are like, it’s, you know, it’s, you know, let it go. It’s just this, it’s just that. But for me, it’s really personal. Like when I’m mixing, you know, it could be mixing colors. I could be laying texture. might look like texture, but it’s very, very, you know, when I’m things down, like it’s, it’s very intentional.

You know, it’s awful. It may look like something that’s simple. know, I know I always hear sometimes with people who go to galleries or music. my, my daughter could do that. I could do that. You know, well, are you doing it? Like, so do it. That would be wonderful. You know, but what happens is those, those modern pieces, the pieces that sort of engage people and make people think, you know, those are just as complicated.

as the, you know, the realistic things that people can relate to immediately. You know, it’s for an artist to stand there and, you know.

create an abstract painting each drop of paint on that canvas means something to that artist. And so I have a enormous appreciation for all different types of art whether it’s something that’s my aesthetic or not so. So my thing is being able to create freely in a space that I’ve. You know that I created.

And that’s the best part of this. And to be able to make a living out of doing what I do. It’s just, it’s a dream come true. That sounds so fabulous. And like I said, I would love to play in your paint shop. Yay. Well, what are three takeaways you’d like to share with us today? I know we’ve talked a lot about creative process. We’ve talked about

the work that you’ve done, but just maybe three things that you think would be worthy of mentioning again.

Well, would say like three create or three takeaways is, you know, in a creative process. think, you know, you know, believe in yourself, trust your instincts. You know, it’s, it’s a lot easier said than done. But once you get in there and you get a little dirty and messy and stuff, you know, it’s kind of a metaphor for life, right? We all have to get a little messy.

Right. then something beautiful comes out of it. So I think trust your instincts, you know, put yourself out there, work really hard at your vision or idea and start somewhere, do something. It doesn’t matter, right? It doesn’t matter what it is. If you sit down with a little notepad and a pencil and you start doodling, you know, or write your vision down.

or play a few keys on your piano or whatever it is. Like that’s the takeaway that I would do. Stay true to your vision because your time will

I love that. Well, Donna, it’s been a pleasure having you on the Creative Genius podcast, and we look forward to sharing this with our listeners. And I keep creating. Thank you, Gail. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you and Pearl Collective. And I can’t wait to have you guys back at the studio. We’ll be there. Good. I’ll have the roast. And I have to say, you do the most beautiful spread of food I have ever seen.

thank you will find fun fact before we leave so what on that note i’m creating i’ve created an event venue i bought some property next to my studio in this beautiful nineteen twenty seven building there’s several buildings on the property and so i’m creating. Because i love.

to, you I want to create an environment for people to walk into that’s beautiful with the food, with the music, where they’re surrounded, you know, all their senses are open. And so that’s another offshoot of my brand, of my creative brand, you know, Don Switzer Studio. It’s called HQ and the Gallery. And so thank you for that. I appreciate that. But that’s something that we’re doing. That’s our vision for the near future.

We will be in touch about that because we do events all over High Point Market, every single market. we’ll be in touch about that. I love that. That’d be wonderful. Awesome.

Are you doing what you love? And if not, what’s holding you back? Hopefully Don’s story inspired you to incorporate more of what you love into your work, even if you’re not good at it right away. Join us again for the next episode where Gale talks with Denae Branson, founder of Elite Design Assistance.

Alas, there is no magic formula or time-tested blueprint for running a successful interior design business. One reason is that, despite a number of similarities, each interior design business is unique. Yet, struggling business owners often look to their competition to try to figure out what they should be doing. Instead, they should be asking themselves what will make their particular business profitable.

In this episode, Gail talks with Ali Faulkner, principal designer, AEF Interiors in Orange County, California. Ali opened her firm only five years ago, not long before the COVID pandemic rocked the industry. She’s had a lot of ups and downs, but has managed to hold on and grow her business into a highly successful firm with a team of seven in a relatively short period of time.

Ali explained that when she first started operating her business she made a lot of mistakes. A major one was that she kept turning down smaller projects in the hope of landing some really big ones, because that’s what other firms in her area were doing. But, those big projects didn’t materialize. Finding her business on the ropes with little money in the bank, she realized that she could be a lot more successful doing many small but profitable projects.

Ali says owners need to ask themselves, What does my business need to be profitable? “It’s crucial for you to have an understanding of what size project you need and how many you need.”

To do that, Ali said, you have to pay attention to the business side of the firm. Know how it operates and know your numbers. “If you have the interior design skills and you know the business, you have a double whammy,” she said.

Another important component is to have a clear vision for your firm. She said she knew early on that her vision was to use interior design to help people better. “Getting clear on our vision is what has propelled our growth,” she said. “What makes us all different at the end of the day is who we are and the level of service we provide.”

Gail asked Ali what advice she had for other design business owners.  She said,

To hear how Ali got stays motivated despite her setbacks, and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e2-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Ali’s firm, go to the website at aef-interiors.com.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Allie, it’s so great to have you on Creative Genius Podcast. Welcome. Thanks for having me, Gail. it’s our pleasure. So.

I would love for you to tell your story. How in the world did you get started with interior design and tell us about your story in Orange County, just a little bit about you. Gosh, okay. Never very good at making a long story short, but I’ll try my best here to give you the spark note version. I used to work in luxury hospitality and consulting. So I used to come from a service -based background and worked in operations. I moved to Orange County six years ago.

for another job. It was my first opportunity in being a part of a startup and actually building a company. I was with them for two years and life happens. Unfortunately, I was a part of a layoff. You take the chance by going to a startup and I had the opportunity, this was like early 2019,

where I started to think to myself, I really enjoy building and a lot of the startup companies I wanted to work for, they were all located up in San Francisco and remote work like wasn’t a thing. My husband being the like amazing person he was, like, Ali, like I really love where we’re living now in Orange County, like you should look at starting something of your own. And I was like, okay, well, what am I passionate about?

What does it require like a ton of capital to start a business? And I was like, well, you know, what I’m really passionate about is like serving people. And that doesn’t require a ton of money to start that type of business. And I believe in myself. I had a strong like belief in myself that I could start something. And so I started to think to myself, like, at the end of the day, like I have a good eye for design people, you know, would say I had cute outfits and I had like

you know, furnished our home and renovate our little $25 ,000 kitchen. And during that time while I was interviewing for other jobs, I would be like trying to take a phone call to take this interview. And the guy who would be showing up to do my tile would be like, Hey, before you go, like what color grout joint and what size? I was like, okay, this process of interior design, like this was terrible. Like the level of like experience and service, like I could make this better for people. So.

I had that light bulb moment in my head. was like, okay, you know, everyone has always said like, you have cute outfits. I had done our home. And it dawned on me that like, I could get into interior design. And while again, I wasn’t necessarily accredited, hadn’t gone to school for it. I knew what it took to build something from the ground up. And I saw

myself and 10 other people do it at the startup company. So I really had the confidence to believe in myself. So I did a little bit of research, right? And I was like, okay, what, how do you make money doing interior design? And I learned, you know, there’s, you know, products that you sell and then there’s service. And I said, I’m really good at service. I used to work in luxury five star hotels. I built at client experience before I can build this business.

So that’s the spark no version of my journey. And so I started the business in October of 2019, had no idea what was about to happen to the home industry. And I really have take it. I would say like I rode the tailwind of COVID. And I really think that now being in 2024, how we have grown so much of that is me taking risks, but I would say very calculated risks by looking at my data.

which has allowed us to propel and be where we’re at, you know, in the less than five years that we’ve been around for. That’s so crazy. Well, how many people on your team now? good question. So it’s me plus seven now, which is just like, yeah, it’s, I’m so grateful and I never ever would have thought like, we would have the team that we do at this stage of the company. But yeah, me plus seven says, it sounds really weird to say.

Yeah, not bad for just a very short period of time So how did you have this confidence? Where did that come from? Did you just grow up you just born with it? What is it? What I’ll say is that I moved a lot growing up I went to three Let’s see here two different elementary schools three different middle schools and two different high schools. So I have realized that because of the environment

that I grew up in and I was constantly being thrown into these new spaces and like having to like not eat lunch alone every time I went to a new school that I always kind of just put my best foot forward and knew that like, I’d make a new friend, I’d figure out how to like navigate the new school. I can’t tell you how many times like, I think I tried out to be on like a dance team, basketball team, ran for student body president twice and like.

I was treasurer once, so you could say that I succeeded. to me, the way that I think a lot of people think about failure and trying to do things, I think because of how I grew up, it’s not really my perception of failure. As long as I learn something from it and as long as I’m not doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same results, that’s truly insanity.

As long as I’ve learned something by trying something like I’m winning at the end of the day, which sounds really lame and really cliche, but I think that’s what gave me the confidence to try to go out and build this business is like I had the resilience to know that like I would figure it out. Like I would find a way. And what I’ll say too, cause I did a little bit of research before I got into the industry and there was 2 ,500 interior designers within 25 miles of coast to me. What that means is it’s not only a really

I think mindset, this goes back to like what you always talk about, but like a lot of people could be like, 2 ,500 interior designers within 25 miles. Like, how am I ever gonna stand out? My mind, I was like, my gosh, there’s gotta be a lot of resources here then. Like if there’s that many people, there’s probably that many people trying to sell to those people and teach these people. like, so I looked at it as like, wow, there’s probably a ton of resources that exist here.

And that’s really what I did. Like I listened to podcasts and I learned about all of these, you know, showrooms that existed and third party, like I would say like purchasing houses. Like I learned from my curiosity of the resources that existed. And that’s what gave me the confidence is like, I was like,

I just need to know enough to be dangerous and I’ll learn everything else on the fly. Like, right? You’ll figure it out. You’ll figure out that you need a P trap when you have a floating vanity because you’ll know someone who knows the right information. it was just knowing that all these resources existed here and not being discouraged by how saturated this Orange County market is because it really is. It’s very saturated. Well, obviously it has not slowed you down. they’re in your company, obviously you’re well,

over a million, probably more. And so we know that when you get to that point, that you have to have some sort of foundational knowledge that has supported you to make a success of what you’re doing. So how do you think you learn so much about business so quickly? Besides the curiosity? Yeah, besides the curiosity. So I think it does come rooted from like just being a curious person. There’s multiple parts that I’d like

learned on the fly. And I think a lot of people have a misconception of myself right now. And they hear like, Ali, you worked in consulting, you worked at Deloitte, you must have like looked at PNLs all the time. Like, no, I didn’t like, I, you know, I would help with like, budgets and things like that. But like, gross profit margins and like net profit margins, if this sounds like a foreign language to you, let me tell you it was for me as well. Like as of two and a half years ago, this was

stuff that I knew that I needed to know. really the curiosity is what like the curiosity and being really tired of making no money was really what drove me to start trying to figure out how to do this. But I knew how to build a client experience and client journey. I knew how to like build the operations side of the business, but I didn’t I knew that I didn’t know the finances of

a business more or less an interior design business. So that’s when I started to like look at like maybe a fractional CFO and started to explore that route. And then when you get to the point where you’re tired and you want to make more money, you also think to yourself like, okay, how do I do less? And you think about hiring and it kind of becomes a domino. And then you go start to to recruiter and they say, hey, you want to hire, how much can you spend? And you’re like, well, I have no idea how much I need to spend.

That’s what led me to you guys full circle, right? Is I wanted to hire someone I wanted to make more money. I didn’t know how much I could afford to pay someone. someone, Ken was like, Hey, you got to go over here. And I was like, okay. And I took the course twice. Like I took the financial course twice. And I will say that

everyone can hear the same message, but I heard it so differently. And literally like my husband and I would put you up on my TV in my living room on a Sunday and like go through the business model of interior design and like it. And then I started, I took that information and I applied it to my own business. Okay. Based off how much you want to make per year, this is what your top line revenue needs to be. And I worked backwards and I was like, okay. And it’s really, it also is like failing.

It was also a lot of failure that really pushed me to try to figure this out. I can talk more about that. that’s… Anyways, it was like falling flat on my face that really caused me to say like, you really got to figure this out because you left like a great salary working at Deloitte, working at the startup. Like you did not get into this business for a hobby. You did this to create a life for yourself and your team. And you’ve got to figure it out.

And I knew the whole was the financial piece for me. And I had to figure out how to live it. Sure. Well, I’m glad you took the class twice. I’m little embarrassed that I was on your TV set. Living room? That’s so funny. Well, I think you hit on this, but why is it so important to learn how to run a business versus just being a great designer? I think for me,

have not gone to interior design school. I didn’t work at another firm before. And I think if you have that skill set, like, and you know the business, like you’re a double whammy, right? But I think in order to really have an understanding of like, how you are going to get to where you want to be in life, like, and how you want to support your family or

support your lifestyle. it’s so you do have to work backwards. Like if you want to live a certain way or be able to provide for your team, like it’s so crucial for you to have an understanding of like what size project do you need and how many of them do you need? For me, more than anything, what I’ll say is that like, okay, so I’m too, this was two and a half years ago in the business and I’ll tell you a story.

I got a new office space and I hired a new person and I did that very blindly. Let me let me throw that out there. I was just like, I’ll figure it out again. That like unbeknownst confidence that I have. was like, figure this out. And what happened was that I had two employees, a new office space, and I had it within six months. I had nine bids that I sent out. And up to this point, I had been signing everything.

Well, what I didn’t realize now is I was kind of moving into a new clientele. And of those nine bids that I sent out, I only signed two of them. One was my mother -in -law’s guest bedroom. And I think she really felt bad for me. And honestly, like she probably felt bad for me. And in that moment, not too long after too, I only have two jobs. I thought I was going to sign them all. get all this overhead and I had a project put, you know, a whole home of furniture on hold. And it really made me realize like Ali, like,

You have $30 ,000 in the bank account, which full transparency is not all profit and it’s not yours. Like you have got to figure out like what size projects for your size firm do you need? And I was chasing all of these, like the nine jobs that I was chasing while I was getting considered for these larger projects. I was writing off all these small jobs. Like, and when I say small, mean like.

You know a living room when in reality like the size of the firm that I had like those smaller jobs would have been profitable for my firm so I really had to take a lens and look at my business and say what is my business need in order to be profitable rather than just chasing all of these big jobs and not building to understand that like. It takes time to to get that level of job and.

you don’t need that size job in order to run a profitable business. And so it took me like that experience of falling flat on my face and having only $30 ,000 in the bank account and just writing off all of these potential jobs that would have been really profitable for me because I was chasing all the big ones, not realizing like what I needed for my size business to be able to like continue to grow.

that’s probably a really good example of why I think you should know your business and what your business needs in order to not only run but be profitable because it’s so different from firm size, location. It’s really important for you to have an idea of what are the numbers you need to do in order for you to grow your business. I would even say just break even.

Well, exactly. And if you look at the stats for all businesses, it’s only, I think it’s 40 % are profitable, 60 % or not. So we’re talking across the country, millions of businesses. That’s true. And so the reality is the fact that you’re thinking about that is a different mindset than almost all designers out there. So I hope everybody listens to that and pays attention to that because honestly, you’re in the business to make money.

And you just happen to be doing something you love. So enjoy that. But just remember, this is a business. It really is a business. And if you do it the right way, you’re going to have a make a lot more money. And we have had so many people make so much money in this business. This is probably one of the most lucrative lucrative businesses that you can possibly run. And so if you know how to run it optimally, you’re going to do very, very well for yourself.

It’s a complicated business, too. I’ll say yeah, it’s really complicated. but it is it’s unique. Like what businesses do you have the opportunity to not only sell the service that you’re doing, but also sell product. It’s really unique. And like, I can talk like numbers all day. But like, the reason I ended up getting into this business is, you know, I come from a hospitality like

want to truly help people better. And like that’s my like sole mission in life. It just so happens that interior design is something that I naturally had a good eye for. But like I probably could have gotten into any business that allowed me to help people better. And when I say help people better, it’s not just about it’s about creating a seamless and stress free client experience. It’s about giving them a more personalized design and saying like, hey,

Are you on the left side of the vanity or the right side? Are you left handed? So we’ll put the hairdryer on the left hand side of this drawer. Like, it’s about helping people better. And it’s not. And I really could have done that in any business. But that’s truly what I’m passionate about. And if I’m going to use my passion to also, you know, generate income, like what better thing to do it with than something that you really deeply care about? So yeah, I

sometimes I feel like I can go down this like numbers rabbit hole and everyone’s like, my gosh, this girl’s just trying to like grow. But it’s like, I’m truly just so passionate about people and this business. It really is like that’s what makes us different at the end of the day. I don’t mean to poo, but like interior design, like we all are providing like a commodity and a sofa. So when you think about it, it’s like, what makes us different amongst each other is

how we provide that sofa. Is it an English rolled arm? Is it the way that I take you to our workroom and let you sit and experience it? I really think that interior design at the end of the day, what makes us all different is truly who we are and the level of service that we provide that’s connected to that commodity, like a sofa or a house. I couldn’t agree more. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that one. Well,

Let’s talk about inspiration. So what inspires you besides travel, popcorn and plants? believe those are the things you mentioned before. Yeah, no, that’s a really great question. I’m really inspired by like, if you were to scroll through like my TikTok or like my Instagram, Reels page, like I’m really inspired. I think from a travel side of things, like English and like old world design is really much at the forefront of like.

where I’m pulling inspiration from, from a design lens. I just think that we have so much of the timeless materials that are used when we look at old world design that can be so much a statement, but also something that’ll stand the test of time in someone’s home. So from like an inspo travel standpoint, there’s that. The other thing that you’ll see as I scroll through my TikTok is I’m very inspired by like kind leadership.

And it’s something that when I talk about helping people better, I’m so passionate about serving my clients, but I’m extremely passionate about serving my team. And that’s really what like it kind of you can see my arms, I have goosebumps right now. Like I just, I’m really, I want to serve people better. And it’s not just my clients that serve my team and give them a place that they really love to work and give them a place that they, they,

feel like they’re getting paid fairly, that they’re happy, that they are excited to help us grow. Being a kind leader is something that really inspires me to support my team and not only support the growth of our business, but the growth of them, each as individuals. What’s your big vision for the future? Remember when I told you that moment where

I had only $30 ,000 in the bank account and I was like, okay. So when that moment happened to me, I was like, okay, we’ve really got to like figure this out. And I went through a lot of, I used your lead tracker form. Sorry, I’m like giving you a lot of good notes right now, but it’s so true. I was using your lead tracker form and I realized that 50 % of my business was coming from Instagram. So when you asked me about my vision of the company, I got really clear like,

two and a half years ago. And I really do think that getting so clear on my vision is what has like propelled our growth. And what I did is I was like, okay, a 50 % of our business coming from Instagram, how much billable time am I spending on that? Great, I’m gonna outsource this and pay someone to go do that. Because I need to buy my time back to work on other parts of the business. Well anyways, when I hired someone to help us with social media, I said, hey, her name’s Anne, she’s full time with us now. And I said, Anne,

I know what my like 10 year goal is. I know what my big vision is for this company. I in everything that we do our why is helping people better. So I was like, let’s position ourselves on Instagram and tell people like tell our ideal clientele like, here’s how we’re going to help you better. Here’s what our client experiences. And then I was like, I do want to help like, you know, other people build their businesses better one day, like, again, that common thread. So it’s like, why don’t we put out this information, I think

I think other interior designers inherently will be interested in how we operate. It’s not gonna be marketing material that speaks to them, but I do think it’s gonna help them. So I was like, okay, let’s build the interior design firm that’s gonna help our clients better, help our team better. Let’s then look at the second vertical. It’s like, I don’t know what it entirely is right now. Maybe it’s something to help interior designers better. And I don’t know if it’s like a template that we’re selling on.

I right now speak at workshops and that’s really fulfilling for me. I speak at local colleges. And then my third vertical that I want to build is like, okay, if I’ve helped all these people build businesses, I want to give them a tool to run their businesses better as well. So my big grandiose vision is like, is it a tech platform that helps them run their businesses better? Everything when I think about the big vision of this company, it’s all tied back to that.

And going and I will say almost hitting that like rock bottom in that time of my business made me really intentional with like, why was I doing this? And how was I going to think about the growth of the company? And it needed to be all tied back to something. wish me luck. I know I’m going to do it. You’re going to totally do it. I know it.

All you have to is have that vision and just have a plan. If you have a vision and a plan and you’re determined, you’ll do it. So I’m not concerned about it. Yeah. So my vision is get all of the right team into place right now. That’s like really my vision and focus is like really building a strong team so that I can then start to, you know, over the next few years, look at how to create those other verticals that I was talking about. Absolutely.

Well, how have you built such a big following on social media so quickly? So I would say it again, it’s like when you hit a lot of the times when you almost like hit rock bottom, I genuinely to like, I guess it was not, it was like a year and a half ago that this all happened. Like I thought the business was either going to grow or die and I had to do something different. Like I couldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. I lost seven jobs. Like

I needed to do something different and I think it goes back to like my confidence of just I knew when I started this business, like if I’m gonna do this, I am going to be unapologetically myself. Like especially when it’s a service -based business, that’s so much an extension of yourself. And I thought about like, should I show that I drink?

monster energy drinks and this is my toxic trait. Should I show people that I eat Taco Bell? I do curse a sailor from time to time and do I show that? Yeah, do I show that on Instagram? And I think that it’s so much easier to just be yourself more than anyone else. And I chose very early on when I started building my Instagram that I wasn’t gonna try to be everything to everyone.

Like I was like, if that turns someone off, they’re probably not gonna be like the fun client that I wanna present to and make a margarita for later. And I think that the following really came into play too when I looked at how my time was being spent and when I hired Anne and I said, I really want to show people how we do things differently, not just the pretty photos. And that’s really, took us,

I will say this from like a social media standpoint. I have people ask me all the time, like, how did you grow? Like I hired Anne and it took us nine months to grow 2000 followers. It’s taken us in a year and a half. We’ve grown like, like 30 K and like the past year and a half, but nine months in the beginning, it took us two. We only grew 2000 followers. It takes time to like build your audience and realize like,

But why I stuck out those nine months is not because our follower count didn’t increase, but our leads had doubled. Our leads had doubled. So it was worth it. But I really think the growth was tied to showing people how we did things differently. And it was something that a lot of people weren’t doing on Instagram in interior design. Like people were not doing reels of their construction binders. People weren’t showing people like.

the process of how to work with them. And I think it was unique and it was interesting to not only clients, but also the interior design industry. Well, and I think that’s, I think that’s brilliant because that is the defining difference between you and other people is how you do things, not what you do. Because what everybody does as a designer is pretty much the same. Maybe you have a different aesthetic and maybe you have a different,

you know, selection of vendors and subs that you work with, but in the end, you’re doing the same process. It just has to be, there has to be that defining differential that makes you the best at something. But here’s something else that I will say, and that is, listening to you, is that your interest in the numbers part is helping inform your decisions. And I think that’s a real critical factor that people need to think about.

is if you’re not comfortable with understanding your numbers and that’s everything, whether it’s social media, whether it’s how much billable you’re getting out of your team or whatever it is, you need to understand that numbers are, that’s the heart of the business that makes it work. And if you don’t know that part, then you’ve got to go figure out that piece. And you were very smart to latch onto that very early.

Yeah, like I said, this great group called the pro collective helped me with all these resources. But serious, it’s, I do think that the crutch of it all is like, what helps you make take these risks is like, they’re informed risks. Yes, like, there’s no doubt that like going and hiring, you know, someone for social media, that’s a risk. But if you have the data that saying like, hey, that’s

If your time would be a lot better spent doing something else, go hire someone to go do that part. And I think that’s just like so crucial to like grow. How else are you going to grow? You’re going to keep doing the same thing over and over again if you aren’t paying attention to the numbers. Absolutely correct. Well, I love it. You’ve given us a lot of great nuggets and I’d like you to pick three that you would like to highlight.

that you think are the most important things for people to pay attention to from this podcast? Yeah, what? Okay, let’s see here. I would say number one, you just need to know enough to be dangerous to start. Lean on resources. There’s so many vendors, coaches, people who want to work for other people. There’s so many resources out there to allow you to learn on the fly.

The second thing I would say is know your data and know your business. Because again, 2 .5 years ago, I was chasing all these big jobs because that’s what the other firms that I wanted to be like were doing. those jobs didn’t end up working out for me, I overlooked all of the jobs that were actually extremely profitable for my size firm.

Try to say know your data and know your business. And then three, what would I say? I would say that hire people who are smarter than you and get out of their way. Perfect. Yeah, hire people. Hire smart people. Absolutely. And get out of their way and let them do their thing because the more that you empower them and…

It’s just going to go a long way to not only giving you the fulfillment of seeing your business grow, but also fulfill them and letting them use their superpower. Awesome. Allie, this is great. Thank you so much for being a part of our podcast. We appreciate it. I know a lot of people will be inspired from what you shared today. Absolutely. Well, absolutely. I hope I inspired people. Not absolutely. No, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Of course.

Perhaps at one time or another you’ve considered using a recruiter to help you with a difficult or timely hire. Perhaps, too, after reviewing their fees you decided to conduct the search on your own. Understandable — but did you factor in all the elements involved? A recruiter can do a lot more than helping you find possible candidates. They can make the difference between making a satisfactory hire and making a great one.

In this episode, Gail welcomes back to the podcast Ken Roberts, principal with Interior Talent based in Orlando, Florida. Interior Talent specializes in talent recruitment and retention for firms in the architecture, interior design, engineering, retail and manufacturing industries nationwide. The firm has been serving those industries for 21 years.

Ken said he and the team at Interior Talent think of themselves as “career matchmakers.” They help clients find the best candidates for their firm and candidates to find the best fit for their career plans. He pointed out that for most employers conducting their own search, the process can take up to six months. Their firm usually can fill a position in one to two months.

Ken explained that a recruiter not only can save employers time — time they can better devote to growing their business — but they have industry knowledge and contacts that give them access to candidates who might be a great fit but who are not responding to job postings. They also can help with other aspects of hiring, such as conducting skills assessments, onboarding and retaining employees.

Ken acknowledged that a recruiter is not for everyone. He said, in general, they are best called upon to fill more senior-level positions and in firms with five or more employees. But, he said, clients need to be ready to make the commitment to work with the recruiter. They need to devote time to the process and communicate responsively.

In the second half of their conversation, Gail and Ken talked about succession planning. In particular they discussed what’s involved in identifying and, if necessary, recruiting the right leadership to take over the firm to ensure its future success. Leadership goes beyond competency, Ken pointed out. What makes someone a great designer does not necessarily make them a great leader. In selecting someone to lead the firm, clients need to have a good understanding of where they want to take the company.

For more insights, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e1-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

You can find more information about Ken and Interior Talent on the firm’s website at interiortalent.com.

To listen to Ken’s previous appearance on the Creative Genius Podcast, in which he talked about hiring and retaining employees, listen here.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Ken, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast. We’re glad to have you here with us. And for those of you that don’t know Ken Roberts, I’m going to have him share his story. How did he get into being an executive recruiter? Gail, so great to see you. I love spending time with you. So thanks so much for inviting me to be part of this. My pleasure. I know your listeners will be always hopefully get some more exciting stuff like that. You always like to share, but

A little bit about me. Well, I am one of the principals of Interior Talent. We are an international recruitment company based in Florida, but we nationwide and 21 years. And we got into the business. My partner happens to be my wife and she actually started the business. I came on about a year later because I had a lot of experience in the recruiting world, but more recruiting from my team. I managed about 500 employees in the West.

And so I took that experience and kind of joined on forces with her. had some good sales background and always loved what she was doing. And so we took her interior design recruitment specifically business and we expand a little bit more and we started working with architecture firms. And so I jaund on and we said we would do it for a year and if we could still stay together, we’ll continue. And here we are 21 years later, still working together and loving everybody. And still married. And still married. Yes, still married.

Good point. Yeah, well, especially there are so many couples that work together and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So it’s a good sign that you’re 21 years in. So congrats. No, it’s great. I love her. Yeah. Well, let’s talk about what a recruiter is. A lot of people have not used a recruiter and what is it? What do you do? And when is it best to hire somebody to help you with hiring somebody? No, thank you. Great question.

You know, over these 21 years, what’s amazing how we’ve seen, specifically for this industry, more on the interior design side than on architecture, but on the interior design side, lot of companies didn’t know what a recruiter was. And we basically, we are that talent acquisition arm for a company. You know, when they’re looking to hire, it’s a lot of work and takes a lot of time, especially for smaller firms where like the principal and owner is really in the thick of the business to kind of take the time to look at bringing on some additional talent.

So a recruiter like us, we’re a niche recruiter, only work in A &D. We are really that resource that you go to when you want to find the very best talent. So we are a team here in Orlando and we have some remote employees that we have great relationships and we take those relationships to help navigate the waters of maybe the candidates that are not qualified to ensure you’re getting the best qualified and interested candidates in front of you. And we really take

Because we’re so specific to the industry, we really understand this world and we can talk the language. We can be great ambassadors for our clients. And so I like to say we’re matchmakers. We are career matchmakers. We’re taking great talent with great companies, putting them together. And the whole idea hopefully is to be able to make it a great match. But more importantly is to save the employer, aka the principal, all that time and energy it takes to kind of weed out through all the

Not so great. It is. It is a hard job to hire and find the right people and ask the right questions and go through all the. Resumes and read through it and I know that your expertise and especially 21 years in you have so much knowledge about how to read a resume and probably see things that we don’t see that if we’re not in the recruiting business, of course we’re not going to know all the things that you look for.

Yeah. And you know what it is too is that, know, a lot of people and it’s no, it’s human nature. want to hire people that we like. Right. So sometimes we can help ensure that the, let’s say the qualifications or the technical aspect of that kid, its background is already a match when you’re meeting with them so that you can focus a little bit more on whether or not the personalities and culturally they fit within to your company culture and they kind of jive with them.

So it helps kind of, it does speed up the process for sure, but it allows us to, because we look at so many portfolios and so many resumes, we can weed out things a lot faster than most companies can because we just do it all the time. And so you’re right, know, it’s just a lot of, sometimes a lot of things that they miss and we try to weed through that so that they can really just see the best, you know, the best candidate possible, right? Well, I’m sure you’re not for every firm.

because it is an expensive thing to hire, of course, to pay fees to you all. But what size of firm is a good firm size to be working with you? You know, I think it comes down to, well, I would say that typically when we see firms that are maybe about five or more employees, right, typically, because usually at that point, they have a little bit of more structure to them.

You know, when we get the 10 or 15 or 20 employees, they’re even more structured, of course, typically. But, you know, when we first started Yelp, we worked with five -person and three -person firms, and we still work with those small firms because they have the least amount of resources. But I think where the right size firm really comes down to understanding how we can work best together and how we can be the ideal partner to support that.

And we understand that, yes, we are not the most inexpensive service that you can hire. We try to do everything we can to let them really see the value in that. But more importantly is making sure that we can truly be partners that really understand what their needs are. And there’s time and time again that we tell our clients, especially the smaller firms, like that’s not what you need. You don’t need that much or you need something different or you can pay less. We really want to help them to understand rather than just trying to get a placement.

Our reputation and our commitment to the industry is way more important than making a placement. Yes, we’re a business. We got to make money. Of course, we got to pay the bills. But we know that those those quick placements are not really why we’re in business for 21 years. So I don’t know. That’s a long way of answering your question. Hopefully it does. Well, yeah. And I think because it is an investment, then somebody has to be willing to pay that price.

But when you think about how much time you have to spend going through the recruiting process and placing ads, which you do on their behalf, and then you have to review the resumes and the job descriptions and go through the initial interviews and set those things up and then help to negotiate the deal. There’s a lot that goes into what you do. And so, of course, that’s that’s something that you can’t necessarily know exactly how long it’s going to take. And so therefore,

I think your model of giving a percentage of whatever their first year’s salary is, is the way you work. And so based on that, that’s, you have to be prepared for that. For sure. And we really make sure that in upfront, when we talk to someone that wants to work with us potentially or has the need that we let them understand, you know, really how do we navigate those waters and to make sure that’s upfront. We we’re not going to

We want to make sure that everyone knows upfront what they’re walking into. And then we try to help navigate. We understand cash flow, and so we can do some things to kind of help spread out payments a little bit. We work with those companies. But more importantly, is to your point, is how long have they been looking? Usually they come to us after they’ve been struggling, right? So they’ve been looking for three or six months or longer and think how much time that was. Whereas if they would have came to us upfront, they would have had all that time to build their business.

And we could have find them that great person that would have been adding that additional revenue or support. it’s hard for sometimes for companies if they ever used a recruiter to understand, to put their toe or foot into the waters. But what’s great is we’re so honored and feel so privileged that once we do get to work with somebody, they do see the benefit. We have a wonderful repeat clientele because they understand that.

They don’t have to wait three months to get somebody. If they come to us, typically it’s a month, a month and a half, sometimes a little longer depending on the position or location, but they can move a little bit faster so they can really forecast and plan a little more effectively. To your point, you know, you bring out that right senior designer, how much more money you can bring to your job line, right? So, we wanna try to help companies with that. Yeah, and for sure, like you said, if it takes six months and you can help somebody.

Within a couple of months, get somebody in place. That’s four months of revenue. And if it’s three times, whatever their payroll is, then you have that opportunity to make that if you them on sooner than later. So I understand completely. Yeah, exactly. But you’re not a fit for everyone. And we’ve talked about this a little bit. Some firms is just not the right fit to work with a recruiter. And it’s not necessarily just size, but let’s talk about what are the things that would get in the way of having a good recruiting

situation or a scenario happen? think, well, that’s a great question. And you’re right. Unfortunately, we’re not ideal for everybody. And we get that. And I think what it comes down to is a couple of things. One is that they understand how our process is and work within our process. It is a process. We have a five step process to ensure that we can really make sure that we can have the most success with a company. And so if they’re not, you know, if they’re not giving us great feedback,

They’re not comfortable being a strong communicator with us. They have to really be make sure that we stay to that process and make sure they go through a proper interviewing schedule. And if they just want to be a little more shoe from the hip, little more… It’s a commitment of time on both sides. And sometimes there’s too busy.

So A, if they’re too busy and they don’t have time to kind of stop and help us through this process, that’s going to be challenging. Secondly, is I think that if they’ve never hired before, there are sometimes small firms that have never hired before and they don’t know what to do. I’m always happy to give my professional experience and share with somebody, but we may not be the ideal recruiter or maybe a recruiter is really not right for them at all.

And I think it really comes down to communication, being a great communicator on both sides, because we over communicate probably sometimes, because we want to really make sure they understand what’s going on. And then secondly, as I think is making sure they commit the right time that’s important to be able to do this whole process. we can only bring the best candidates to our clients. From there, they do the hiring. So they have to go through the processes.

have to let us guide them through, maybe they have to add a couple of more steps in there rather than to rush through it. And that’s really, we get a really concern when companies wanna do like a one and done, we call it like one interview and one hire. We don’t encourage that at all. Most recruiters are all excited about that in the recruiting world, but we’re not because we know that there’s so many things that you could be missing after that. And we wanna make sure we go through the process. So once again, that takes a commitment of time.

So hopefully allowing us to walk them through that a little bit more. Yeah, mean, listen, and financially, there’s always that aspect of it, too, that, you know, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to them. And listen, if it’s a really junior person, I tell my clients, like I tell potential clients, I’m like, save your money. You can find those people typically on your own. It’s when you get to those strategic senior, you know, high, mid level, senior level, executive level, director level, those where we can really be

magical partner to really find those people that are gainfully employed and now bring them bring your company their company to light to understand what they could what that can offer them. Sure. Yeah. Well, and also just to remember it to set expectations because you as a hiring person, it’s not the recruiter’s fault if you didn’t go through all the steps and do thorough interviews and maybe have three interviews and put them through actual tests like

Maybe a design example or some sort of scenario testing their ability to check details, checking their references. You still have steps that you have to take and you cannot expect the recruiter to do those things for you. Right. But if they are like, we try it when we look through our discovery process, when we work with somebody, we walk them through that. Say, what is your hiring process now?

A lot of times with firms that have never used a recruiter, kind of, some are more organized, but some are just like, I meet them a couple of times and I make a decision. Well, let’s, is there a design shred? Is there a CAD test? Do you want them to redline some documentation? Whatever that may be, that’s an important part of the job. Like you just said, let’s slow to go fast. Those extra steps, it’s amazing what they can find out through some of those little extra steps.

usually not a lot more commitment of time on their part. just does extend the process a little bit, right? So it’s huge. but yeah, we get, you know, a little frustrated sometimes when they want to rush them and don’t want to do those things. Or if they’re on the other side, it can take too long. Right. So someone that is not available, that extends the process of interviewing.

let’s say they’re traveling shows, they’re just not available. That also can be very frustrating because it’s very difficult to get a candidate to say yes. Once they say yes to want to meet with a potential company, if we don’t keep that time of engagement, that process moving, they can lose interest. And so we got all this way to get a great candidate in front of you, but then they get one interview, then they have to wait a week or two weeks before the second interview. That also can be…

challenging as well. So you need to do this when you’re ready in your business and you’re not going on vacation for three weeks to Europe. You’re not on sabbatical. You’re not going to a big show in the middle of this whole process because crazy deadlines, crazy deadlines. Absolutely. Because when you get down to it, the candidate needs to feel like they’re your number one priority when you’re hiring. Even if they’re not, you have to make them think that because

you have to convince them that you’re a place that they want to work. And a lot of it is how you respond and how you react in those interviews. yeah, absolutely. So true. You know, it’s still I mean, it’s not as crazy as it was during kind of COVID and stuff, but it is still a candidate centric market. So to your point, you do have to I don’t like using the word woo, but you kind of have to really make them feel at least you’re very interested until you’re not.

Meaning that maybe you’ve gone through the process and they’re not the ideal candidate. But up until that point, you have to show interest in the way you show interest is keeping the process moving along, making sure you set aside that time like we’re talking about and making sure that you’re giving the thorough amount of time when they do come in. Especially that’s a big time is when they come into your office. We sometimes will see candidates will get in there and they only get like 20 or 30 minutes like.

They just drove, they left their day or office early or what have you. And making sure there’s ample time that sometimes can send a wrong signal. And this is a funny industry because we feel like there were not only matchmakers, but sometimes therapists. so we hear all from both sides, both candidate and client, all the things that are challenging them and things that they are frustrated about. So those are sometimes things we hear from candidates that like they felt like they were, I wouldn’t say dismissed, but it was just very short.

They take that as maybe they’re not interested, even though they just might be busy. Yeah. Well, one of the things that we try to enforce or explain to our clients is your internal client is your employee, is your team member. And those people, if you don’t put them first, then they will not put you first, nor will they put your client first. So in order for you to have a happy culture, you really do need to take care of them and make sure that they feel important and heard and.

Appreciate it because today people have choices and they can they’ll jump ship in a minute if they don’t feel comfortable with the culture. It’s so true. It’s very, very true. Yeah, yeah, well, it’s good point. I love that. Well, let’s shift gears because you and I have a topic that we’ve been talking about offline for a while now and that is the session planning. So first of all, why don’t you define what’s the session planning is? Absolutely.

Well, this is a very big topic. And succession planning is really, is how are you going to change the leadership and kind of direction of your company by that new leadership? you know, people think of it as, you know, just if there’s going to be a new president and new owner, but not necessarily. We don’t like the use of the word owner. We like to use the leadership because, you know, there has to be the right person at the home. And if someone’s looking at

retiring or just changing directions and you know as far as their day to day you need to have that right leadership in place and successful planning is typically not just one person it could be a team of people and so successful planning is really is guiding your company in the direction of getting that new leadership in place so that it can continue to succeed and thrive in your absence whether it’s day to day or all together.

Well, we all think we’re invincible, but we’re all going to leave the business one way or another. And I remember years ago, one of our young boardroom members, she was in her early thirties and we were talking about succession planning because a lot of the people in the group were older. And she said, I’m not even thinking about that yet. I just started my firm. I said, you should think about it now because you need to think about where you’re going in the future and think about what’s the structure going to be so that I’m building that team.

and having that in the back of your mind as you’re building your team. It’s so true. know, it’s a session planning takes time and you know, it’s a minimum of five years in that seat. You kind of take that’s what we’re seeing is to really feel confident that person can take over, but there’s nothing more. So we have a person on our team that’s been with us for a number of years, about six years, and we are been grooming him at all this time.

to continue to learn and guide the company. there’s nothing better when you can take an employee that’s maybe started from, and you like use the bottom, but in a more junior role and continue to grow them up into a position of leadership because that person has so much buy -in, so much knowledge been exposed, can understand all the different levels of positions that you might have in your company. And I always like to tell these companies that we work with is that you always have to have the end in mind because

I don’t want to work forever. Maybe you do, Gail, but I don’t want to work forever. Well, I can’t work from the grave, so I do have to think about that. Exactly. And so it’s kind of nice when you plan to know that, I think I may retire at 60 or 65, whatever that may be. And you don’t have to, but at least know that’s the plan. So if she was 30, OK, does she have 30 years to kind of really think about that? And when does she want to start implementing in certain key roles to kind of help?

And I also say that succession planning can also be where you move out of that seat of, you know, really kind of the encompassing leadership role, the present role, CEO role, and maybe you take a different role in the company and you can have someone else take that seat. So maybe you just want to be in the business development. You want to just be in the creative side. Maybe you want to focus on your new furniture line and all the merchandise that you’re developing. So there’s different seats they can take. They don’t necessarily have to be out of the company, but

it does take time to kind of, first of all, look at that, see if there’s anybody that’s on your team that can potentially be in those, you can see in those seats. And then what is the plan for them and for you to kind of know that at some point you have to start giving off some of those responsibilities and guiding, giving a little bit more. We just talked about this just the other day. Where you’re kind of putting off these little responsibilities that wind up being

that add over time to really make sure that they’re ready. Yeah, I’ve been working on it for really about 10 years, but the last five, I’ve really sped it up. And now every six months, I’m taking things off of my plate and starting to hand those to the leadership team. So for example, the other day I put in a list of six things. said, okay, guys, here we go. Next year, these are off my plate. So we need to start planning for this now.

And you need to be aware of that. You have to take some things off of your plate. So figure out how, who and how you’re going to make room to take on these other responsibilities, because for you to step into the leadership level that I need from you, you must do that. So it’s an interesting process teaching people to do that. And one little tip that I would suggest is to give someone that is on your leadership team. hopefully you do have that by the time you’re starting succession planning.

If you think those people will be your long term people, then start giving them big tasks and big projects to work on. So, for example, I turned over, I opened up all the financials to my two people who are on my executive team. And so I have an executive team and a leadership team with one additional person. But as the executive team, I handed off the project of doing the budget and doing budget cuts and doing other things. And I said, this is on you.

You all need to learn this and so I’ll walk you through the thinking process and now I want you to go take that and figure out how you’re going to do this. And they came back and it’s like a complete shift in their mindset about the business because now they totally understand the things that I’ve been working on for years and had to deal with all by myself. And now I’m sharing that with a leadership team. So you have to be open and you have to be willing.

to be transparent in some of the things in your business that you’ve kept to yourself for a long time. And guess what? You’re not alone. Right. And then here’s the other side of it. Sometimes companies don’t have those people in Right. Right. So you have to go find those people. And so part of what we’re talking about is when you start really thinking about that, because maybe there are some we have an executive search division that helps with a lot of the succession planning for those real leaders.

bringing in someone as a president, bring someone as a CEO, what have you, but sometimes you don’t necessarily need to bring them in at that level. You bring them in as a senior designer or senior project manager and they groom into that position. But, you know, sometimes you just don’t have that person on the team that has the skillsets to kind of really kind of you could that you see can groom into that. Or maybe that person in your team has no interest. And that happens a lot. We’ve seen that where they’ll have a team member, they’re

But they have no interest in leaving as a designer or a project manager or an architect They just want to do that and that’s okay, too. That’s amazing to have that person But so when you have to look at finding that person outside, well that takes some time, you know and and that process can be you know when There’s a couple of sides one it can be very almost emotional for someone to be able to find someone that’s gonna take their company over right and so

We try to help navigate that part of it. But more importantly is to really understand the direction they want to take the company. Because I can tell you there’s things about me that I wish I, you know, as far as my attributes, know, professional attributes, I wish I would do somewhere different because I probably would have done things differently. And so how do I find someone that can enhance the things that I feel that I’m not as good at or I wish I were better at? And finding that person is what we try to do is find those things that can help fill in those gaps of where

Maybe things were not all there. But that’s a tough process when you have to now look for that person. And that typically happens when they really haven’t thought about succession planning. And now they’re at a point where like, listen, I want to retire in three or four years or five years. Right. And so now what do I do? And really we don’t want to. This industry, as big as it is, there’s so many incredible design firms out there that it is a

we’re seeing a lot more owners that are aging towards retirement. You know, mean, the statistics are was at 33 or 32 % of the US population will be at retirement age within the next, I think, five years. It’s a massive number. So we’re having like a silver tsunami happening. So that doesn’t mean people have to retire at 65 for sure. We’re seeing people work a lot longer age, know, people living older, longer I say, but

people may not want to work, right? And if you don’t want to work past that point of all, you got to get things ready. And so finding that right person takes a little bit time, we can support with that. And, you know, it’s, it can be, like I said, a little daunting for a company to think about that while running their business. Yeah, and I’ve seen some really interesting things lately, because I have some clients that are interested in selling their businesses and trying to get prepared for that. And I think one of the keys that I would say that I’ve seen lately, and I’m

curious about your thoughts on this is that you can have somebody who’s got the skills and the interest, but if they don’t fit the culture, is that the right person to be on your leadership team for succession planning? can a person make shifts and adapt to the culture and correct their issues? Is it possible? I mean, I guess anything’s possible per se. I don’t agree with that as a strategy.

But what I’ve seen happen is that if you have someone that really from an operational perspective and understanding the business, really incredible design eye, creativity that has that part, then you find the person that can help be part of that company, maybe in a different role that can be that more culturally kind of to kind of keep things a little more together per se or be a little bit more.

On that side of the business, you maybe this person is more than the creative and you bring that more operational person that kind of help kind of to kind of fill that gap in. We’ve seen that and that can work well, but to your point, I don’t know. I don’t know how comfortable I feel. If I had someone in my company that I feel could do the job. But culturally, one was going to take in a different direction. Right, maybe not even a different direction is just a.

the personality doesn’t fit. And if you do the analysis of the culture words that you have for your business and that person doesn’t meet those culture words, can they change? I don’t know. And also here’s the thing is how long they’ve been with the company. And if they haven’t changed by that point, there’s probably a good chance they’re not going to change. And I think that, you know, well, first I would be concerned is how long does that person move with your company and they want a cultural fit at beginning, right?

That would be a little because I think that’s a really big part. You can teach people skills. I think it’s harder to teach them to change who they are as a person. Right. You know, people have innate characteristics that, yes, I think people do can change. They become more compassionate. They can be more caring. There’s a lot of things you do. But sometimes that, you know, they just don’t want to. That’s not a maybe they’re too very conservative or maybe they’re too liberal. They just want to be more relaxed. And maybe that’s not the culture of your company.

So those things are sometimes harder to change because that’s who they are at the core. And yeah, but I mean, listen, I do believe anybody can change. I just think that it’s probably harder to do that. know, it’s a, it’s a tough one, especially if you’ve invested a lot of time and energy into somebody and you would have a hope for them, but they really just can’t seem to quite fit into that culture the way they need to, because you really need to have a hundred percent cheerleaders in your.

In your leadership team is my view of it. They represent your company and so they have to represent you exactly the way you want to be seen whether you’re there or not. Yeah, so you have someone that’s you know that they have this employee that is already doing this work. They’re doing credible. They’re the model of getting the job done work ethic just incredible. But there you know the deep down side their culture like to this conversation. They’re not right and then.

You really have to go through this dilemma of like, do I supersede them with somebody else? Right? Because they think that employee thinks that they’re the next in line because they’re doing everything that they to their eyes, they’re doing everything right. And so now you realize that that person is really not the person that would be best as the top leader, the president, the CEO, the person at the very top of the food chain to kind of ensure that

Like to your point, everyone, the cheerleader, the mentor that everyone is expecting. And that’s a really tough one. You know, and so, you know, that’s where tough decisions have to be made because, know, they. To my point or other, you can teach someone a lot of skills and you can teach them how to do the job. But can you teach them to be the right representation and ambassador of your company to your employees at Towson as well, but also to the biggest employees because

You know, listen, we see a lot of times that if it’s done incorrectly with succession planning, a lot of employees will leave because they don’t feel the faith and confidence in that leadership. Because that is one of the main reasons why people leave companies in the first place. They don’t feel the leadership. if it’s not done right, it could be a real problem. So it takes time and effort. know, I think there has to be lots of conversations to understand what that looks like. know, one time we would get

pleasure of working with a company that’s looking for that succession planning of a leadership position. President, we go through a very extensive process of really analyzing. We talk to all the employees, we go into their work environment to really see and we spend time with them to understand the day in day out, to really make sure that we have a really clear understanding of the representation that’s going to be necessary for that person coming into that seat. Right? Because it’s

It’s more than just can they do the job. We know that. Well, and that fit has to be not just for the temporary. we know that some everyone shows their best face when they’re interviewing and they may or may not exactly be that person in reality. So that’s one of the reasons to do those multiple interviews and have your team do it. For example, I have somebody on my team that’s great at reading people. So I want her to talk to everyone because she’s going to give me a different

take on the person, then I will have. So you need people like that who can help you make good decisions and choose that right person because it is so critical to have a great fit for your people. So true. I love period of views. One of my favorite things we do here, we recommend it to companies when they not everyone’s comfortable with it, but we love period of views because I think that’s it. There’s such a different perspective that is that is taken from your team.

that you would see or wouldn’t see. And I believe that when people meet someone that’s not in the hiring decision maker, that that person, their guard goes down a little bit more. So they be able to your point that a little bit more, maybe themselves, they’re not so buttoned up per se, and they can be a little more relaxed. So they sometimes will hopefully not slip things out, but sometimes they do. They say things that are like big red flags. And other times then you can really see them

shine, right? You see them in that environment and they even shine more because they’re their employees like, love this person. I can totally see myself working with them. I would love to work with them or for them. So it can, you know, a lot of times it’s more of that. But, you know, there are times where they’re your employees are incredible. They do. mean, to like you said, you know, if you have that person that can read people, but really is a great, they understand who pro collective is. They can really

they understand what’s going to be the right and what’s not going to work. To have someone that can kind of sense that out is really special. So, yeah. And people, your team feels really empowered when you do. They feel like, yeah, I’m part of this company. I’m going to make sure that the next person that’s sitting in any seat is someone that we’re all going to be able to get along with, going to work well together, someone that’s going to help make everyone’s job a little bit easier and more effective and the company’s going be

happy and growing together. So yeah. Well, here’s another big question. And this one is, how do you know if somebody can grow into a leadership role? I know. Well, I like to look at their history, right? So I like to look at where people have been previous. so, you know, this is obviously not going to work for, when you’re hiring a junior designer. let’s say you’re hiring a senior designer.

I like to look at their previous roles. like to look at if whatever did they mentor? they with how what who and what were they managing as far as size of teams? Were they managing just for a project? Were they managing certain aspects of the business? They were responsible. Maybe they were just responsible for, you know, making sure they had enough supplies for the supply closet to whatever responsibility that they had responsibilities that they could take care of.

You know, time and time again. But when you look at someone’s history and you see the roles they had from the very first job they had to the job that they’re in and see a progression of how they can be a team player, how they can be a problem solver, how do they take initiative to help make a better process as opposed to just doing what they’re told? Right. I think all those attributes together can.

help. The other thing is really understanding us how do they play in the sandbox? Do they get along well with others? Are they an island or do they want to be part of the team? Right. So when we look at employees for our clients, in going into leadership roles, we look at that history, even though they may be a design director now. That’s great. But a design director at one company is very different from another. And so

We try to look and understand that history and look at how it’s progressed. I hopefully progressed and to look at some of those things. mean, there’s, there’s other attributes. I mean, look at people’s, what are they, where do they see themselves? What do they want to do and understand if they gonna, are they going to strive for that position or are they comfortable being here? Like I said before, maybe they just want to be a designer and that’s okay. So that’s obviously not someone that’s going to probably be a great leader, even though they may have continued to excel in the company from

taking on bigger projects, client retention, just been a rock star, winning awards and time and time again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re gonna be a great leader. Sure. It is, you never totally know. sometimes it’s so interesting, because I had one person that other people on the outside were saying, I don’t know if that person can be a leader or that person can do X, Y, Z.

I’m thinking to myself, I don’t know. think this person does have that capacity. And I just was determined to find out. And thankfully, it did work out. And it’s not always what you think. So you have to go through a process and trust your instincts on it, too. So sometimes listening to others, you’ll have to put that aside and make your own judgment, too. I agree with that 100%.

I think that that’s the core of it all. mean, you have to listen to yourself. You know your business better than anybody else, right? Right. But, you know, here’s the thing is that I think someone’s personality, they have the fire and excitement and are excited about taking a bigger leap. You know, that’s that says a lot, right? They may have to still learn the the ability to do that. Maybe they’ve not managed a lot of people may have managed no one.

Maybe they haven’t worked directly with clients, but they are excited about it. They want to learn. They’re ready to stumble and pick themselves up and learn and continue to get better. That’s where you, you know, that’s what I get excited about. When I see someone that’s like, just teach me. Yes, put me in coach. Yeah. And they take feedback. have to be able to take feedback. People that are going to make it to leadership must be able to take honest feedback and corrective action when necessary. Totally.

You know, I think one of the biggest attributes I find with anyone that’s moving into a leadership role is, are they a problem solver? A real problem solver, not do they, you know, look at a problem and then like, you know, trying to go ask people for solutions. They’re coming up with solutions and coming up with trying ideas to try to make things better. Whether it’s a process or whether it’s a real problem, right? I think that’s the, know, in life, life constantly hits us with problems, right? Challenges and

How do we navigate through those? And we think not a lot of people are comfortable in that. They want to be told what to do. Right. How do I solve this? What’s the solution? Where’s the playbook? Give me the instructions. Right. Or other people like, you know what? I got the instructions, but I think it’s better. I can do this way. Be faster, cheaper and result will be better. I love that. That’s yeah. I love that. Well, we’re at the end of our time. So I would love if you would give me three takeaways that you

think were most important from this conversation today that you’d like to share? Well, if you’re going to want to work with a recruiter, know that it takes two to tango. You have to make sure you have the time and commit to understanding a better process, right? Sometimes it’s a better mousetrap to be able to find and secure that right next new employee. Secondly, I think from a succession planning is start early, right? The process takes way longer than

You think to groom an employee to the place where you feel most comfortable that they can step into that leadership role. And then if you have to go on the outside to find that person, is that really understand where you want to take the company and look at the attributes that are going to be important. Someone’s going be the right ambassador, someone that can be the right leader, the mentor, the cheerleader, and get the support you need to be able to find that person. That’s also going to take time.

takes way longer than we all anticipate. We always wish it takes a lot less, but it takes longer. So I think those are the three things I would say. And this has been wonderful. Thank you so much, Ken. It’s always great to chat with you. And I know we have several other topics we should probably come back and visit about. I would love it. I would love it very much. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. My pleasure. Thank you.

Fear can be a positive emotion, protecting us from danger. Fear can also be a hindrance, holding us back from achieving our best, true selves. Deep-seated fears and traumas from the earliest years of our lives may influence our choices and relationships without us even being aware they are doing so. In the name of keeping us safe, they create barriers to growth. Recognizing and getting free of these fears can allow us to live more positive, productive and satisfying lives.

In this episode, Gail talks with Master Life Coach Rhonda Britten, founder of the Fearless Living Institute. The Institute offers coaching and programs to help individuals identify and master their fears. It also offers training and certification for those who want to become coaches. Rhonda is also an Emmy-winning TV host and the author of several books on living fearlessly.

Rhonda related her own traumatic past and how it colored her sense of self and choices into adulthood. Her decision to change led her eventually to understanding the critical role fear plays in our lives and how one can break free from fear.

“Everything comes down to fear,” she said. “Fear loves you. It wants to keep you safe.” That might seem a good thing. But as Rhonda discovered, fear cuts you off from your essential nature, from the activating principle that wants you to live the life your soul intended.

What we normally think of as fears are what Rhonda referred to as fear triggers. The kind of fear she is talking about is a more deep-seated core fear that develops sometime before we reach age five. She identified 10 of these core fears, one or more of which most people are affected by.

Gail asked Rhonda what are the keys to living fearlessly.  Rhonda stated five:

For all the details of Rhonda’s story and her insights into living fearlessly, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e10-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Rhonda, the Fearless Living Institute, and her books, go to the website at fearlessliving.org. You will also find her podcast and blog on the site.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Rhonda Britton, it is so good to see you and have you on the podcast today. And well, thank you, Miss Gail. Yeah. And here we are. It is July in two thousand and twenty four. I can’t believe this. We have known each other almost 10 years. Get out of town. No, I know. Wow. We met each other at a mastermind retreat years and years and years ago.

You’ve done a lot of different things over the years and I can’t wait to talk to you today about what you’ve been doing and what you’re planning to do. But, and I almost hesitate to start here, but I think your story is so powerful and I would really love for you to share this with listeners because the minute I heard that, I mean, I just felt it all over my body and, and every time I hear it and I’ve heard it so many times now, but it just,

touches me deeply and I just really feel like it has a powerful message to share with other people. So would you mind sharing? No, not at all, Gail. Of course, I’m happy to. I know you’re referring to the worst day of my life, right? Because most of us, most of us, the worst day of our life actually becomes the vehicle in which we blossom. You we don’t we don’t necessarily look at it that way for maybe a few decades or, you know, could be years, could be decades. But, you know, eventually when we look back on our

we can see how the seed of our purpose, the seed of who we are meant to be, the seed of, you know, our convictions is usually birthed on the worst day of our life. And for me, that was when I was 14 years old. And I grew up in this little tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny town in upper Michigan, 365 inches of snow a year, two restaurants, know, Douglas house, hotel buffet and big boy. It’s all we had. No McDonald’s, nothing, nothing, zero, it Joe? And my parents were in the middle

getting a divorce. And my it was Father’s Day and my father was coming over to take my mother and my me and my two sisters out for Father’s Day, which is a big deal because there’s five of us and we really never went out to eat. And so we’re going to go to the Fancy Douglas House buffet. Very excited. And so I’m in my mom’s bedroom. You know, she’s fluffing up a beehive hairdo, putting on a blue eyeshadow, rose color lipstick. My dad, you know, I can hear him coming in the front door. Come on, come on, come

you know, my mom looks at me and I’m like, okay, I’ll go. And so I start walking towards the back door with my father and he starts, you know, yells to my sisters, come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. So me and my mom start walking towards the door. My sisters are still in the bathroom. We have one bathroom, so they’re fighting for the mirror. And as we’re going out the door, my father, starts raining.

And my father looks at us and says, well, I’m going to go get my coat from the car. And so me and my mother start, you know, walking out gingerly through the rain and my father opens his trunk. And I noticed out of the corner of my eye, he hasn’t grabbed a coat, but he has grabbed a gun. And he starts yelling at my mother. You made me do this. You made me do this. And he fires. Now

start yelling, what are you doing, dad? What are you doing? Stop, dad. What are you doing? Stop. And he cocks the gun for a second time, points the gun at me. And I absolutely believe I’m next. He blinks, I blink. He blinks, I blink. We’re just frozen in that time moment. And my mother, with literally her last

screams out, no, don’t. And my father realizing my mother is still alive, takes that bullet intended for me and shoots my mother a second time. And that second bullet goes through her abdomen and out her back and lands in the car horn. And it just starts wailing. And then my father cocks the gun again.

drops to his knees, puts the gun to his head and fires. So in a matter of minutes, know, two minutes, I was the sole witness of watching my father murder my mother and commit suicide. Now, I don’t know how other people would respond to that, but this is how I responded. It’s my fault, right? I did nothing heroic during those two minutes, right? I didn’t grab the gun. I didn’t jump in front of my mother. I didn’t, you know, kick his shins. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t do anything heroic.

And now my mother is dead. And so from that moment, I understood that I don’t get to be happy. Right. don’t, I don’t get to have true happiness. That’s out, that’s out the door for me. You don’t get happiness when you don’t do the right thing, right? When you don’t save the person you love, you just don’t get that. And then for the next 20 years, you know, I lived two lives. On one hand, I got a scholarship to college. I graduated, my class, you know, so on the outside I was

I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. But in the inside, I didn’t deserve to be alive because I should be the one that’s dead, not my mother. I should be the one. I should be the one. So then for the next 20 years, I lived this double life. On the outside, I pretended everything was fine. Like I said, I got a scholarship to college. It was fine. But in the inside, because of the destruction in my own mind,

and so much fear I was in, even though didn’t think it was fear. I never ever uttered the words, I’m afraid, ever. I don’t think many of us were trained to say those words, and I definitely wasn’t trained to say those words. So for the next 20 years, I tried to kill myself three times. I became an alcoholic. I had three DUIs, spent a little time in jail for that third DUI. And it was that third suicide attempt that I realized something.

I realized that I’m not very good at killing myself. not good at it at all. shouldn’t laugh at that, but it’s… Yeah, but it is, but I didn’t, I’m not good at it, right? And that third suicide attempt, by the way, they put me in a psychiatric ward to evaluate me because now it’s my third time. So now they’re gonna take me into the hospital. And I don’t remember how many days I was there, three, four, five days, and a little straight jacket next to me just in case, little lockdown facility. And I remember my older sister, Cindy Cumming,

I’m in middle of three girls, my older sister Cindy coming to see me. And have you ever experienced Gail, somebody losing hope in you? know, somebody looking at you and realizing that there is no hope that maybe you are damaged goods, that you are never going to change, like you’re never going to get over this. Well, that’s how my sister looked at me. Wow. And

I could see it, you know, could see it. And I was sent home, my sister leaves, she doesn’t live where I was living at the time. I go home to my little tiny studio apartment. And I realize that I have to start over. And so what I do, I think I have a thought. What are you doing kindergarten? And

Well, you get gold stars on a calendar, right? So I actually went to the store, I got a calendar, gold stars. And for the next 30 days, I put a gold star next to anything I did, anything good, anything good. And I’m talking about good meaning I got angry and I didn’t break anything. That’s where we were, right? Like that’s where I was in my life, right? Like, I got angry, right? Or, you know, I didn’t have a drink, you know, instead of getting drunk, I didn’t get a drink, right? So I’m talking very basic things, very basic foundational things. But after 30 days,

and I had gold stars, I realized I was worth saving. And I began to do the hard things that changed my life. I was willing to see myself, I think, most importantly, clearly, because I think I wanted to blame my dad and I wanted to blame my mom and I wanted to blame the world and I wanted to blame men and I wanted to blame the society and I wanted to blame the government. I wanted to blame everybody.

But that day I realized that all of those things don’t have power over me, I do. And that was humbling, mortifying, vulnerable, devastating, and the seed of life. Changed my life, that moment of being willing to see myself through no eyes and be willing to be wrong about myself.

That has such a powerful story. And I just look at where you are now and what a happy and vibrant person you are and all that you have to offer. And you’ve started the Fearless Living Institute. And so that is a real mission for you, which I love. And I think there is a huge need for what you do. So tell me a little bit about that and what it’s done to help support your growth and your journey from this dark moment.

Absolutely. So, you know, God gave me the title fearless living because I was like, you know, what do you what I call this, you know, after a few years of doing it. But, you know, I was working, you know, so there are a years past, obviously, and now I’m, you know, I’m taking classes, I’m doing workshops, doing all these things. And during those 20 years, by the way, I also took workshops in class, because I’ve always been a learner, but I just couldn’t kind of get over the hump, you know what mean? But what really transpired is

I was working for a coach and I was doing PR at the time and I was helping him. And he would always tell me, he was one of the very first coaches, and he would tell me all the time, you’re going to be a better coach than me. And I would look at him and go like, did you forget about the three suicide attempts, the three DUIs, the time in jail and the alcoholism? wait, and the murder -suicide? Did you forget about that? Because I really, really, really believed, and I think this is one of the most important things that I hope.

your listeners here is that I really believed that I didn’t earn a different future because of my past. Now I had heard all the stuff, I’d gone to church, I’d done all self -help. I knew that that, you know, everybody’s, you know, I knew that logically, but I really fundamentally still was tied to my past. And so I remember being at his house and again, he’d been, been taking classes now, I’ve been doing great, you know, doing learning and growing and you

And he would just call, tell me that. And I’d be like, you’re crazy in my mind, you know, and I’m sitting in his office and I’m sitting on the couch and he’s at the board and we’re brainstorming some workshop he’s going to come up with. And all of a sudden, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you the story, Gail. All of a sudden, through the corner of my eye, he’s going to cut a little, a little crazy now, a little crazy moment. The sky opens

a cloud comes out with a book on it and the book comes out and it goes like this. shuts, right? And it goes back into the cloud. And I’m like, what just happened? What am I hallucinating? I haven’t been drinking. I don’t drink anymore. What the heck? What’s going on? And I look over at my boss, know, the guy, my client.

And think, well, it must be for him because it’s not for me because I can’t, I can’t do that. And he’s talking, he has no clue. And then I turn around because I can’t, I’m convinced it’s not for me. So I turn around and I’m like, somebody must have come in and I just, you must be overhearing them looking everywhere. And there’s nobody else but me and him. And he’s completely oblivious. Well, Gail, the message was, the download I received was the answer to every single question I’ve ever asked. And the direction that you must now go share.

Me? What are you nuts? Did you forget about the DUI? Did you forget about all that? And thank God I was in a program, four year practitioner program. I had to become a spiritual counselor and I run to my minister the next day. They got an appointment and I told her this whole story and went like, what? Crazy. And she goes, well, it sounds like you got the call. And I’m like, call? She goes, well, you got the call. And I’m like, yeah, but I have three credits left to

bachelors I haven’t finished. I need to get a master’s, I need get a PhD, and then I need to write a book so it’s going to be for seven years for sure, like seven years for sure. And she just kept saying to me, well, if you got the call, you’re ready. And I was like, no, no, no, don’t understand. Okay, I got that. I got to finish my semester, the guy comes in, and I got today, I go, I go, it’s going to be seven years for sure. And she just kept saying, you got the call, you’re ready. And I remember it took me about six months to surrender to even

have an inkling that this was for me, that I was meant to support people. Because again, I loved supporting people, but I thought I was too damaged to do that. So, you know, what that message was, was basically everything I teach today. It talked, of course, about also, you know, that was the seed of it. And then obviously I’ve and moved, expanded beyond that. But inside that message was the seed of everything.

And the seed was everything is fear, right? So, you we can talk about procrastination, we can talk about overwhelm, we can talk about not being supported, we can talk about, we can talk about any reason that people aren’t moving forward in their life, whether in their business, whether, you know, personally, how they view themselves, you know, their, their self perception, their self acceptance, self love, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, mindset. We can talk about any of the reasons why that’s happening. And again, you know, everybody knows why they don’t, why they’re not moving forward. Everybody knows that part.

and they blame it and they believe, the psychiatrist, believe wholeheartedly it was for clear reasons. You know what? Well, look at these reasons, right? And people will be like, well, yes, those reasons are really good. But when I got that download and beyond that, I really started understanding everything comes down to fear. And until you understand how fear works for you personally, because we all, we have a, I call it the wheel of fear, but it’s personalized to each person.

So once you understand what your wheel of fear is and how fear operates through you and as you and on you and at you, it’s always gonna trick you because it’s masterful and it’s meant to keep you safe and it is fighting for your life. It believes that it’s fighting for your life, but it’s not the life of possibilities. It’s not the life of joy. That’s not the life. It’s the life of safety.

and it’s literally fighting for your life. So it’s got the greatest stories. It’s got the greatest proof. got the, it knows your whole life. knows everything about you, right? And so it’s got every message you need to hear to stop you in any way, or form. So, so that is what I’m devoted to. I’m devoted to people’s helping people master their fear. And I’m also devoted to helping people help people. So I train coaches.

I train, I have a new program coming out that I’m excited about for all coaches and all therapists and all wellness practitioners. But you know, so I support people in finding their wheel, moving them to the life that their soul, I say live the life your soul intended. And of course train the coaches that help them do that. That’s so great. So this is really, I love that it’s a calling for you and I can definitely tell that it’s a calling for you. And I think that helping people

address their fears? How do you do that? What is the way that you help them figure out which one is the one that’s dominant and the one that is keeping them from really achieving whatever their potential is? How do do that? I thank you for that question. And the first thing I want to say is most people think they know what they’re afraid of. Like if you come to a class of mine or if you work with me one on one or work with one of my coaches or read my book Fearless Living, Whichever way you do it, you can do it through the

You can do it, like I said, a class, a workshop, online and with Miami as a coach or other coaches. The first thing is that people think they know what it is. yeah, I know what it is. Yeah, because my mother always called me lazy. That’s what I’m afraid of. Or I’m afraid, I don’t want to fail. I’m petrified of failure, right? And so people think they know what it is and good, yay, yay, you know something. And what I would say is that’s a fear response. That’s actually not your core fear.

because that’s the thing fear’s letting you see, right? Now for all of us, the generic version that we all, most of us use words like this, but it comes down to not being good enough, right? Not being, some form of not being good enough. And so that’s what most people come with, you know, and again, they may come with, yeah, I know, I already know what it is, I already know what it is, I already know what it is, and I’m like, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, yeah, okay, mm -hmm. You know, I always go, yes, maybe, let’s find out.

And then I put people through a series of processes and through the processes, it’s kind of like the curtains part, right? The fog parts. together, it becomes evident. It becomes so clear. And what the response

most everyone that does this work with me and in workshops, I said online, they feel at the moment they get it, the moment it becomes like, my God, they say, now I understand my whole life. I understand why I quit that, why I married this person, why I divorced that person, why I went to school, why I go to school, why I left that job, why I took that job, why I stayed at the job, why I won’t do this. It kind

clears the path and it takes it away. And this is really, really important. It takes away the self blame. Right? Because, I didn’t do it. I’m lazy. I, I just didn’t have the courage. You know, I didn’t have the support. I didn’t have, well, okay. Or maybe it’s just, you’re afraid to do it because it’s literally the wheel of fear tells you you’re going to die if you do it, you know? And again, it doesn’t say those words, right? But

on some level, and again, you’re not even aware of it most of the time. It’s just really good at distracting you. know, like squirrel, yes, okay, like it just gets you off track. But that’s what fear’s job is. And fear does a really good job. And this is what I want, you know, everyone who’s listening to us right now to hear is that fear loves you. It’s not doing this because it’s evil or bad. It just loves you and it just wants to keep you safe. So, but when you can rip the, you know, rip the bandaid

and actually see fear for what it is, it becomes a huge asset and it becomes something that becomes fuel and it actually helps you point the way. So we’re talking fear of failure or fear of success. Which one is it? is it both? Yeah. Well, it’s so fascinating because let’s just look at it. So fear of failure.

is actually, I hate to say this, because I know a lot of people have think they have that fear. And again, it is a fear they may experience as what I said, like a fear response. So most people think of it this way. I bet most people know what their problem is. If you ask them, okay, why? Why do think you’re not as successful as you’d like to be? Or why are you don’t you have the love you want? Or why aren’t you making the money you think you should have? Or, you know, you you’re dying for? They’ll say to you, well, it’s because I’m afraid to do this. And they may not use the word afraid,

because we’re talking about fear, I’ll say it, but they’ll write a list. You know, like I procrastinate, I’m, you know, I haven’t been able to get over this. I, please, I care too much about people think of me. I compare my, I compare myself. Like they all know, like a lot of people know what the, what I call fear responses are. And those are the things that fear allows us to see. we get distracted by those things. So we don’t see the actual.

what I call the trigger fear, the core fear. Because as long as I keep you busy with the fear responses and you keep trying to solve the fear responses, just like the chairs on the Titanic, you’re not going to focus on, you know, the big hole in the bottom of the ship. You’re just going to keep on like, if I just get a better view, I’ll be fine. Right. So, I’m going to grab the 10 and let’s just have fun here. So there’s, let’s just, yeah. So there’s a, there’s a trigger. There’s a trigger and the trigger.

is that thing that is your core fear that is unconscious, hidden, and was developed by the time you were five. So you’ve had it your whole life. And you have been masterfully crafting it. Okay, you’ve been masterfully crafting it. So you’re really, really agile with it. And that trigger, whenever you get that, whenever you get triggered, again,

As you become awake to your trigger, you’re start being able to see when it happens. But in the beginning, you’re not even, most of time you’re not even aware of it. All you’re seeing is the fear responses, like, the procrastination, the overwhelm, the perfectionism, the people please, et cetera. So then you start doing the fear responses, right? And when you do those fear responses, we all know what happens. We hate ourselves, right? We dump into the core negative feeling. It’s like, my God, I did it again, argh. And we have the feeling.

Okay, this is what I say is the feeling you’re afraid to feel, the feeling that’s running your life. You don’t want to feel it. And then when you feel that feeling, most of us have experienced what I call self -destructive behaviors, right? We’re like, go down to the pity party. You know, I drank, right? So, you we all have our things. So we want to be able to identify the trigger is the key because once we can identify it, we can sniff it out before it moves us into a fear response. So what are some triggers?

let’s just see what some triggers are. now this isn’t, know, me reading this out loud is not you getting your trigger. This is just one kind of having you think about it, so to speak, right? So if you think about somebody that you love and admire, somebody that you, you know, and I don’t care if it’s person dead or alive, I don’t care if it’s fiction or nonfiction. It could be, you know, somebody, character in one of your favorite books, or it could be Jesus.

Right. Doesn’t matter to me or could be your great uncle. But think of somebody who really matters to you and their opinion of you matters to you. And if you say there’s nobody like that, I’m going to, I’m going to push back on that, but okay, just try to think of somebody. And would you be devastated? I’m just going to read the 10. Would you be devastated if that person you admire really respect and really how they see you matters?

If they came to you and said, know, G Gail, I never, I never wanted to tell you this, but the real reason you’re stuck where you are and you’re not able to move forward is at the heart of it all is you’re selfish. know you look generous. I know you’re, I know you look like you’re a giver. get that you’re good at covering it, but you and I both know you’re selfish. Now, right. So most people will say, well, I I’m not selfish. I’m not selfish. You know that because you’re running from selfish. Right.

Right, when people protest too much, right? Well, I’m not selfish, I’m a giver. Mm -hmm, yeah, yeah, because you’re petrified to be selfish, you’re petrified, right? So, selfish. The next one, think about the person you love and admire, stupid. Is it okay to be called stupid? Is it okay to be thought of as stupid? Is it okay to be thought of as weak? Okay to be thought of as incompetent?

Okay to be thought of as ordinary, just like everyone else. Okay to be thought of as a loser, by the way, that’s mine. You know, could smell loser a mile away. Yeah. Yeah. Mine’s all loser stuff. Loser, by the way, are people that, you know, give all they got, but never finish the line, never get over the finish line. Right. That’s not true when they’re in freedom, but when they’re in fear, that’s what happens. Fake. You know, if you’re a person that you really admire was

you know, at the heart of it, you’re just faking your way through life and you think you’re so authentic, right? Lazy, lazy people, by the way, are people that keep extremely, extremely busy. It’s not quality of busyness. It’s just quantity. Invisible, you make yourself invisible, but you’re dying to be seen or rejected. So you reject yourself before anybody else rejects you. So those are the 10 triggers. And, you know, maybe one or two or three

popped up for you and I don’t know if you want to share if any popped up for you, Gail. I’d probably say rejected. Okay, okay. So yeah, so when people identify their wheel of fear, what ends up happening? let’s just say yours is rejected. Mine is, like I said, loser. Again, like I said a little bit ago, it really opens up a world for you because then you can see all the places you’ve avoided, all the places you’ve

bypass all the places that you haven’t done A, B or C because of that core fear. And again, your core fear is very, very subtle. So, you if I was working with you right now, I’d be like, okay, so how does rejected show up for you? You know, I would want you to prove it to me, right? I want you to prove that that’s your trigger because usually what happens is again, some, let’s just say a 1 % of my clients, if that, and I know everybody listening to us right now thinks they’re in the 1%. So

1 % of my clients get it the first time. 99 % of my clients don’t. Interesting. So yeah, because it’s like fear goes, let Gail think it’s rejected. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s a good one. Okay, let her get that one. But maybe it’s really ordinary, you know, or maybe it’s really selfish, or maybe it’s really incompetent and whatever. And then we move through the different fear responses, core negative feeling, et cetera. But then the good part comes, Gail. We then identify your wheel of freedom.

And the Wheel of Freedom also has four components. the most important one, key one on the Wheel of Freedom is your essential nature. And this is the part of you that you cut off and learn to hide by the time you were five. You give it to everyone else, but you never give it. You very rarely give it to yourself. Now, before I move on, I just wanna say one more

We’re not all in our wheel of fear all the time. There’s probably tons of areas of your life, Gail, where you’re amazingly fearless. And I too, have areas of my life where I’m tremendously fearless. You have people in your life that you can be fearless with, right? But then there’s that person or that job or that client or that opportunity or that whatever, that fear goes, shut her down, shut her down, shut her down. This is not safe, shut her down, right? And this is where we need to tap into our essential nature, that part of you that…

was hidden long ago because that essential nature is actually your activating principle, your brilliance, your light, your access point. Interesting. Yeah, so mine is authentic, just to give you an example. And I just want you to think for a minute, if my trigger is loser,

Do you think that I think that I should be authentic? No, no, no. So the way that I’m wired and the way that you’re wired is fear and the will of freedom, will fear and will of freedom have us so wrapped, so tied, because the very thing the essential nature asks us to do, i .e. be authentic, will expose loser. My fear, right? I will fear that it’ll expose loser.

I have always, ever since I was younger, I was one of those girls that wrote poetry, know, like, and copied poetry and, you know, and just, you know, all that. That’s just want to be authentic. My favorite saying growing up when I was 12, 10, 13 was C .C. Cummings, now I’m going to butcher it, is, you know, to be yourself night and day is the hardest battle of all. And again, I butchered that. But I was 12 years old.

I was 12 years old, right? 12. My favorite book when I was 12 was, am I afraid to tell you who I am? What? So being authentic was, that just was not welcome. being authentic is

greatest asset and it’s also whenever I move into a new area, still my greatest, you know, the thing that I must move into because it’s a very, because again, your will, fear and will freedom don’t change and you’re always going to expand and distract risk die. So you want to keep growing, right? You want your, you actually want your comfort zone as big as possible. every time I move into a new area, there’s, there’s good old, there’s good old loser coming up and they’re good old practice authenticity.

Well, that’s really interesting. So I’m have to read your book. I haven’t read this book. I will put that on my reading list, which I love to read and I haven’t been doing as much lately. So be right up there. So in all of these cases, how long do you think it takes people to go through the process of really getting a handle on whatever it is that is their trigger? Well, you know, I have a preferred

process, okay, so my preferred process, my preferred process is you come to a, you know, a weekend or a two day online program because I take you through a journey for two days that not only has opens you up to find the best wheel of fear and the best wheel of freedom for you. So if you go through the weekend, you know, I’m not only going to take you through the process of discovering your wheel of fear and will freedom is I’m also going to give you tools.

and skills, I’m also going to guide you how to pop out of that two days with a toolkit of how to move forward, right? Because you’re going to be going into the world as you’re on your wheel of freedom. And that’s a different experience. Now, again, with some people, you’ve already been on your wheel of freedom, but other people are going to be like, what, what are you doing? You know, like what you’re going to be, know, right? so to have that toolkit, so my preferred way is

come to a two day and work with me and my coaches through the process. If that doesn’t support you, I have an online program, go through the online program. Just do it, maybe do it with a friend, but go through because when you go through the online program, you also have me really giving the hints and tips like I do in the workshop. I take you through the whole process. Now, obviously the shortcut is hiring a coach and just having them do your wheels.

But I’m going to tell you that that can be done in three sessions, two or three sessions.

And what happens is it just becomes like your astrology chart, right? yeah, I’m a Sagittarius, right? I’m an ordinary, you know, I got an art and it doesn’t actually, you don’t actually learn how to use it. So it just becomes another thing you got under your belt and what you can call yourself. So I really encourage people. And again, you can do that. And if you believe you’ve done all the work and you, you know, again, you know,

then awesome. The other thing I say is if you, you know, it’s usually, you know, tricky to find, you know, so I do encourage like that’s another thing to come to the live events because we work through them and we kind of get to the heart of it together, so to speak, and working with a coach. you know, you can go through the online program and hire a coach for three sessions and that would be fantastic or, or work with a coach for a certain number sessions to help you integrate

So that’s the thing. You can read the book, you know, and you read it tonight. Just read chapters two and three and you’ll have your wheels, right? Or what you think your wheels are. But again, it’s about the integration rather than just the knowledge. Yeah, it’s so important to do that. I have my cat behind me. Are you hearing her? Yeah, but I love it. It makes you human, Gail. I love it. So she decided that she needed to be part of this interview and say hello to you.

I love it. funny. I’m going to mew or meow back. my gosh. I’m sorry about that. Anyway, no, never apologize for a kitty cat. So funny. All right. So obviously there’s a process and obviously there’s some more people have to do and understand that. Like you said, knowledge is not really the thing that you want. You want the application of that knowledge so that you actually make a change for yourself. So I think that all makes total sense.

So what are five keys to living fearlessly? That’s fantastic question. Number

truly believing and taking this on that there’s nothing wrong with you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It’s just fear. Two, you do have a soul mission and you do have a calling and you do have a purpose. And the only thing that’s stopping you from experiencing it is that darn wheel of fear. So, you know, take up the mantle of live the life your soul intended. So, you know, actually walk around and say, I’m willing to live life my soul intended and see how that vibrates in every cell of your being.

And just imagine if you said that as a mantra for, you know, heck a day or a week or a month, I’m willing to live the life my soul intended. I wonder what would come for you. I wonder what would come for you. Three, that you are exactly where you need to be, that there’s no nothing wrong, like I said, wrong with you. So exactly where you need to be in order to move to the next place. So be willing to forgive yourself for your past. Forgive the wheel of fear.

Forgive whatever needs to be released so that you can let go of your past and move into your present for This is something that we haven’t talked about but I’ll just gently gently and quickly touch on it The fourth thing is the key is to recognize the brain is your friend When it’s in freedom and the brain is your enemy when it’s in fear, right? so we’re going to use the assets of the fear, excuse me the asset of the brain to actually work for you rather than against you and

Lastly, I would say I want you to take up this mantra as well. Am I making this up or is it true? Because whenever you’re faced with a situation and you’re being triggered, if you repeat immediately, like am I being triggered right now or am I making this up or is it true? Really, really be willing to be wrong about everything. You must be willing to be wrong about everything to find the right life for you. I’ll say that again. You must be willing to be wrong about everything to find the right life for you. So am I making it up or is it true?

probably 90 % of the time when you’re not feeling it, you’re making it up. And find the truth and learn the skills and receive the courage, live on that wheel of freedom so you can live the truth, your truth. Because we’re all here for a particular reason, we’re all here for particular path, we’re all here to live our destiny, whatever that is. So it’s either fear or love, gang, so your choice, I choose love. Love

You are a beautiful soul, Ms. Rhonda Britton. Thank you, Gail. Thank you so much for being here today on the podcast. It was a pleasure as always, and we need to see each other sometime soon. Absolutely. I can’t wait. All right.

In many parts of the world, life expectancy is increasing. Many adults in the U.S. today can anticipate living into their 80s and possibly beyond. Maintaining a high quality of life in one’s later years requires taking steps now to ensure your future physical, mental and financial well-being. With a sound foundation, the second half of life can be just as fulfilling and rewarding as the first.

In this episode, Gail talks with Michael Clinton, author of ROAR: Into the Second Half of Your Life (Before It’s Too Late) and founder of Roar forward. Prior to transitioning to the second half of his life, Michael worked for many years in the magazine publishing industry, holding top-level positions with GQ, Conde Nast and Hearst Magazines. He is also a writer-at-large for Esquire and a regular columnist for Men’s Health.

Michael chose to leave his publishing career and devote himself to promoting and advancing what he calls “the new longevity.” People in a number of countries are not only living longer; they are healthier, better educated and better off financially than the elderly of past generations. They can take advantage of many new possibilities in the second half of their lives.

Michael created the acronym ROAR to sum up his blueprint for successfully aging well into one’s 70s, 80s and beyond. It stands for Reimagining one’s life as one ages, Owning your numbers (assessing your current health and financial status), Action plan to realize the life you want for yourself, and Relationships (found to be essential to happy, healthy longevity).

A key to aging well is engaging in activities and endeavors that are fulfilling and help you continue to grow, such as lifelong learning, exploring, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.

Michael offered three observations on how to capitalize on the new longevity:

During their conversation, Michael also talked about how the new longevity is affecting the economy and how interior designers can take advantage of the new longevity 50+ market for renovation, redesign, second homes, and home building. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e9-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Michael and his book, go to the website for Roar forward at roarforward.com. You can also sign up there to receive the newsletter Michael mentioned at the end of the podcast.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Michael, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast. So I’d love to know a little bit about your background and then what led you to write the book Roar into the second half of your life before it’s too late. Thanks, Gail. It’s great to be with you and to see you again. Well, I spent about 40 years in the magazine publishing business in New York City. I was the longtime publisher of GQ. Then I was a senior VP, exec VP at Conde Nast. Then I went over to Hearst.

where I was on the team that launched Oprah’s magazine and we launched Food Network and HETV and built out a lot of brands. And I was for the last 10 years, the president and publishing director of the company. And I had a great, wonderful career. As I like to say, I was maxed out. I was ready to sort of think about what’s next. And as I was doing that, what I was reading and listening to and hearing out there in the world at large was,

Are you going to retire? you going to wind down? you got to like, wait a minute, that’s not on my agenda at all. I don’t even like the word retire. It’s a false construct that was created by the government 90 years ago. And, you know, people before that used to work and then they died. mean, they worked until they died. So I said, I’m ready for my next act. And I started to do some homework. And I said, I want to write a book on this

And part of it was really to get something off my chest, quite honestly. But what was interesting is I found, you know, I interviewed 40 people and I found people who were very like -minded. And since then I found many, many, many more people who, like yourself, who have said, you know, I’m far from finished. And the other thing that sort of tied into that was this concept of the new longevity. You know, if you’re 60 and healthy, you’re probably going be 90.

And if you take care of yourself, that’s a whole lifetime of, you know, another 30 years of living. And, you know, at 70, another 20, 30 years of living, you know, et cetera. So we can all accomplish a lot more than you’ll pardon the expression sitting around and or playing golf. Right. So the book, the book was really designed to sort of stimulate that thinking for people in terms

this concept of the new longevity in combination with all the possibilities in the second half of your life. So that’s what took me there. Well, I love it. And thank you for speaking for all of us who are in the more seasoned years of our life. We’ll just say it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what does Roar stand for? So when I conceptualize the book, I wanted it to be, I didn’t want it to be homework.

know, because a lot of people like groan and go, okay, this guy’s gonna lecture with me and so forth. I wanted to be informational, entertaining. I wanted real practical tips and action points that people could follow in their own way in their own life in their own pacing. So we created so roar is an acronym. It stands for how do you start the ours? How do you reimagine and the reimagination process for yourself? The own

The O is owning your numbers, owning your health numbers or financial numbers, your owning your age, owning all the numbers around your life. The A is the action plan and that’s life layering is the core to that. And then the R is the relationships that you have because so much of what you’re gonna do next is gonna be, you’re gonna have to rely on support and your community and your family and your friends to really help you get to where you wanna go.

The book was in four parts and had component parts. And I love the feedback I’ve gotten from people when they say, your book is a blueprint. It really is a nice blueprint for me to follow. And it’s not homework and it’s not, you know, it’s too, you know, high in the sky, if you will. yeah, so that’s the Roar concept. I love it. And I remember you sharing at the retreat when we saw you earlier this year.

that you are getting ready to, I think, run a marathon and you are, again, seasoned. Meaning a few years under the belt, but in a very healthy way. And it’s very obvious that your mentality has not slowed down, even though you have reached this level of maturity and you have just so much to offer. So I really appreciate you being this. I would say just later in this particular area of

that all of us should be concerned about at some point. And probably a lot of people aren’t even thinking about until they hit about 50. But it is a very vital topic that really should be covered because I don’t believe people need to act old, look old, be old at whatever age they are, 60 plus. Yeah, no. I think, thank you. I think I’ve become the accidental role model. That wasn’t my plan, but I’m sort of I’m proudly wearing the moniker.

because what I’ve realized, and I like to make, know, the new longevity movement is really a social movement. It’s really being driven by people who are redefining the second half of life. And I always make the analogy that the women’s movement, you know, in the seventies, when it really changed the role models for women as to who they could be and what they could become and the choices they could make about their lives. Today,

Today’s 25 year old woman looks at so many different kinds of role models that she can choose from and say, you know, I want to launch my own business. I want to be a CEO. I want to be a senator. I want to be on the Supreme Court. know, pick your ambition. What I’m hoping is that people like me and others are creating the role models for not just ourselves, but for for younger people who look at us and say, I didn’t realize you could do that at 60.

I didn’t realize you could start a new career or launch a new business or run a marathon or, you know, pick, pick whatever subject it is. So I think it’s important. You know, there’s this great line, Gail, you can’t be it unless you see it. And, know, right. And think about now, think about so many of the role models that are already there in the celebrity culture. know, Oprah just turned 70. You know, she looks amazing.

You know, if you look at Jennifer Lopez, she’s in her 50s. If you look at Cindy Crawford, she’s about to turn 60. I mean, the redefinition of what 60, 50, 60, 70 looks like is changing before our very eyes. And the behaviors that go with that, possibilities of things. I was just at a graduation ceremony for a friend of mine. She just graduated from veterinary school and she’s 60.

I love it. you know, she said, you know what, I’ll be a veterinarian for 20 plus years. that’s perfectly fine. And another friend of mine is 90 just got remarried. So, you know, it’s all it’s just it’s creating the possibilities of what might be and then figuring out what works for you as an individual. So that’s the exciting part. I think it’s very exciting. And I think as long as we don’t look at it as.

a number that we should stop in the ELEKA stop sign and just look at it is just, okay, we’ve got to make some changes here, but those changes hopefully will be positive things and healthy things for us as we go into our sunset years. So what is the new longevity? So, you know, the new longevity is now a concept that is sort of hitting, I’ll call it the global zeitgeist.

It is this recognition that, you know, let me step back. 90 years ago, the average life expectancy was 62. There were 7 million people that were 65 or over in the United States. Today in the United States, the life expectancy hovers around 80. In Asia, it’s almost 90. In Japan and Korea and so forth. Today in the United States, we

60 million people who are 65 or over, and we’ll have over 80 million in the next 10, 15 years. People are living longer because of medical advancements, because of healthy lifestyles, because people aren’t smoking as much, people are paying attention to nutrition and exercise and fitness and all of that. And it’s created

this gift of extra time, this new longevity that is scrambling everything up that used to be perceived as what you were at 65. And as you know, I’m doing a lot of writing for Esquire and Men’s Health and others. And I wrote a piece called Why 65 is No Longer the Number. Because we’ve been programmed that you’re supposed to stop at 65, right? And I would say,

the new longevity is just the opposite. Rethink that. And you can go onto our website, workforward .com under the Thought Leadership tab and see that story and other stories around the new longevity. I joined the Stanford University Center on Longevity Board. And I think we talked about this in the past. Today’s five -year -old has a 50 % chance to live to be 100. So the 100 -year life is gonna be normalized

Maybe in our lifetime, but certainly in our children or grandchildren’s life, it’s going to be, it’s not going to be a quaint news clip on the local news of Mrs. So -and -so who just turned 100. It’s not a novel idea. It’s going to be more normalized and there are going be more and more people turning 100. So this has huge impact for individuals and cultures and society and business and media.

So it’s part of this, it’s the social movement that we talked about. So yeah, that’s the new longevity. I love that. So what is the outdated archetype? Well, you know, we could do a whole hour on that. You know, what happens in media representation and advertising representation is, you know, moving slow, the images of people who are like moving slowly into the sunset, holding hands, know, petting the cat, you know,

very old fashioned dressing. The problem is a lot of creative is done by people in their 20s. And what happens is they default to stereotype because they’re not 50. And so you need more people. It reminds me of the Mad Men era when you had a bunch of men sitting around the table deciding what women wanted in advertising and with the image of women.

And then that all changed. You need 50 and 60 year olds around the table to say, wait a minute, what you’re what you’re showing is so stereotypical and so wrong and just so bad. so the art, the old archetype, they were all built, you know, when life expectancies were in the 60s. And so the new archetypes are being built by more progressive companies, media brands, et cetera.

And I think you’re going to see that. I’ll go back to the women’s movement, the similar analogy. If you look how women were depicted in advertising in the 50s and 60s, you shudder when you look at it today. It’s going to be the same thing with people over 50. It’s going to be a very new archetype that’s going to be created. Well, thank God for that. No kidding, right? Right. Well, you’re officially one of the

Imagineers that you talk about. What are some of the adventures that you’ve been pursuing besides the going on? Hip fitness quest so so You know, I believe You know, I we use the word refire or rewire in our in the book and you know when I was 64 I went back to school and got a master’s degree

from Columbia University. I was interested in nonprofit philanthropy and all of the topic. And I became a student again, is, you know, lifelong learning is so important. You don’t have to go get a master’s degree, but you have to constantly be learning new things. our neuroplasticity going. And the more complex, the better, because that’s what keeps brain health. You know, when the idea of doing a crossword puzzle is not the answer, that does not stretch your brain.

It’s an old fashioned idea. If you talk to scientists and medical people, know, crossword puzzles are that doesn’t do it. You got to do complex things like study a new language or, you know, take on a new topic that you’re exploring. Or in my case, it was going back to school. So one example, you know, I became an entrepreneur, Gail. I launched a business off of the Roar book and RoarForward .com is an entrepreneurial business with a team of six people. And so I became an entrepreneur.

you know, in a very not not planned in the long term strategy. So there was that. I think you remember the story. I did a nine day hike to the Everest Base Camp and ran the Tencent Hillary Marathon down. So I did that just to show that I could and that I can continue to push my my boundaries physically. And so those are just some examples. I think the the re imagineers.

We are, we talk to them about people who are reinventing, rethinking, and it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as going to Everest by any means. What is it that works for you as an individual and taking a first step in that space is really what it’s about. I love that. Yeah. It’s interesting because I think at this, when we get to the season time, this is the time we’ve, have that wisdom to bring to what we’re doing.

And maybe because we have the wisdom is from looking backwards and realizing we could have connected those dots differently, but we learned a lot from whatever we went through. So that gives us that opportunity to explore new things. And I I started this business at 52. So that was not exactly a young age to start a new business, but it was what I did. And here I am several years later. Great example. Yeah.

So what is your goal? How do you want to be when you grow up? I’m going for 100. I’m going for 100. Listen, think if you pay attention to your health span and you pay attention to your wealth span, then you have great lifespan. another story I wrote for Esquire was called, You’re Going to Live to Be Ninety.

Congratulations. How are you going to pay for it? And I think this notion of having the financial resources to live a nice life, you know, of course, when I give speeches around the world, the country and the world, I always ask people, how many want to to be 100? And I get, you know, a decent amount of hands. And then I say, how many of you would like to live to be 100 if you had your wits about you, your mental and your physical

quality of life, we’re operating at a high level and all the hands go up. Because what we don’t want obviously is to have a sort of back end of life experience. So if you take care of yourself in multiple ways, you can have a very long, healthy lifespan and do a lot of the things that are important to you. And I think that’s the track that I’m on. That’s how I think in terms

the rest of my life. The other good news, which you probably know, the older you get and the healthier you are as you get older, the longer your life expectancy tends to be. some of the signs I’ve read is if you get into your late sixties and you’re healthy, your life expectancy is pushing well into the eighties already. you know, that’s, that’s a really interesting phenomena in terms of the compounding effect of healthy living

you know, doing good things through your mind, body and spirit. so now that I’m sort of a you know, all my my family teases me and says, well, you know, you have to live long because you’re preaching this. you like if you if something happened to you and you like drop dead, that would not be good for your message. I’m like, you’re right. So I’m going for a hundred. OK, I think a hundred is a really good target. That’s a good number. What do you want to do to celebrate your 100th birthday?

that’s a good question. You know, I watched the first 100 year old man cross the finish line of the marathon with the Toronto Marathon, which I had run. I’m not so sure I want to run a marathon at 100. I’ll be honest. But we’ll see. We’ll see. But, you know, there are other physical things. I mean, there’s an amazing woman named Betty Russell who just turned 99. She’s breaking all kinds of records as a master

So I want to be agile and balanced and physically fit in whatever shape that is, is the end of the hundred. So I think for sure, I want to do that. I want to be a lifelong learner. I always want to be learning. I was going to be exploring. I was going to be traveling. I always want to be spending time with my family and friends because community is so important to us as we live longer. So I think there’s an alchemy there.

that can keep us very engaged as we live longer. Well, maybe you’ll be jumping out of an airplane at 100. Could be. I did that when I was 19. I swore I’d never do it again, but I might do it at 100. Well, it might be worth it. Maybe that’ll be the way you go. There you go. Go quickly. Yeah, exactly. How is the new longevity affecting the economy? my God, it’s a huge subject. There are some stats that

You know, today, 35 % of the population in America is over 50. And if it was its own country, the spending power is $8 .3 trillion, would be the third largest country in the world. And in 2030, the first millennials start turning 50. That’s in six years. That’s pretty astounding when you think about millennials turning 50,

And that spending power goes to 13 trillion. And so and all of the wealth in this country, about 70 % of it is held by people over 50 spot stocks, bonds, real estate, all the above. So it is an enormously powerful economic group that oftentimes gets ignored by marketers, which is a big mistake because of just the sheer you touched on it earlier.

You know, we have the people in that group have less. They’re pretty much done with child rearing years. You know, they hopefully have accumulated some money. They’re spending it on themselves. They’re traveling. They’re buying products across all categories. It’s it is a it’s having a huge effect on the economy and will for decades because in the generational transfer of wealth, it’s going to happen over the next 20 years.

the Gen Xers and some millennials who are inheriting the next wave of money, they’re going to move into their 50 plus years as very different kinds of consumers. So you want to tap into that group because overall as a group, going to be a very wealthy group. Obviously, not everyone is going to have that experience because we always have inequities. But overall, the numbers are pretty powerful.

How do you think this new longevity is affecting the world of interior design? Well, the numbers we see, you know, all of the renovations and all of the design expenditures and even the new home buying is all happening in the 50 plus. That’s where the action is. And, you know, I think I shared with you a story of some neighbors who I met recently where he’s 90 and she’s in her 80s and they just built a new house.

in nearby and I said, wow, this is pretty amazing. Tell me why. And they said, well, because we can. And we also wanted a modern house that was very high tech. And, you know, I took a tour, it was beautiful design that hired an architect, they hired a builder, they hired a designer. They spent a lot of money on the highest end product. And, you know, to me, that was just a great example. Oftentimes the thinking has always been, well, I have to go chase

that younger consumer because I might have them as a long, long customer. And that’s good. And of course, you should develop new clients. But I would argue that people over 50 are doing a lot of expenditures in that world. So tap into them because they might renovate in their 50s and renovate again in their 70s and then build a new house when they’re 90. So, yeah, that’s a long.

That could be a long trail of a client retention, you know, as opposed to chasing a 25 year old who has no money. Exactly. And it’s funny that you should say that because my husband and I just in the last six weeks put made a contract. We’re building a house and we are putting everything we want in it. And we’re not going crazy. But as a husband, this is the time

I really want to do the house the way I want to do it. I want new furniture. want draperies. I want all those things. And why save this money? We don’t have kids, so we have the opportunity to really enjoy our lifestyle. And he was all for it. So I love it. Great example. It’s really great. Totally great example of what I’m talking about. think you’re going to see more and more of this in general. I think so too.

How can interior designers capitalize on this? Because since, like you said, if you think about it, you’ve got such an opportunity. If people have 25 or 30 years left, and you’re right, and a lot of people move every seven to 10 years, you’ve got probably three projects, four projects with somebody at the very least. And I know, for example, in my situation, I actually said to the person that worked with us on the selections for the house, I said, let’s go ahead and put blocking in the walls

future grab bars just in case. And it is a one story this time. So we’re moving out of a three story into a one story. And we’re thinking ahead because we know that it only makes sense to do that. We hope we never need that, but just in case it’s gonna be there. But obviously I come from design, so that’s what I’m doing. So how would you direct everybody else that is in the field, but really wants to serve this audience?

Yeah, I think some of the things that you just described for yourself are very practical and make a lot of sense. And of course, those are things to consider just in terms of long term strategy. But I think the headline I would give is don’t treat people like they’re old people. Right. Because, you know, if I’m and I have many, examples of anecdotal examples of friends and so forth, they when they’re doing new design in their home.

whether it’s hard goods, appliances, redoing kitchens, bathrooms, software with materials, et cetera. They want the newest technology, the newest innovation. They might have a sensibility for sustainability. They really want to be learned consumers, and they also have the money to spend. So

treat them as if you would treat anyone that you’re doing business with. Age should not be a filter. I have another couple of friends who we know through our families who are in their 80s and they live in New York. They have an apartment in New York City and they are rebuilding a house in Oaxaca, Mexico. And they’re in their 80s and she’s actually in the design space.

as a designer and of tabletop and flatware and so forth. And they’re doing like exactly the way you described it. They’re doing everything that is top of the line, the newest technology. They’re very tuned in to materials. And so I think don’t make the mistake of using age as a filter when you’re working with a client. And that I think is a way to capitalize in on this being one of the

I think it would be a great idea for some people to be focusing on that particular market and marketing to that. I think there is potential out there. Well, the analogy I would use, I’m writing a story right now. I just did the interview with men’s health for men’s health, the world’s oldest fitness instructor. He is 81, but he only trains people 60 and older. So his niche.

has been to keep people healthy. And it might be something in stretching and balance and weight training. And so take that concept in fitness business and translate that over to the design business for second, third homeowners, new homeowners who are in their 60s or 70s who want to trade up. And I think the other thing that’s happening is people aren’t necessarily

scaling down, they are also scaling sideways and they’re scaling up, then they’re scaling, they might be making choice like you, I don’t want three stories anymore, I’ll go to one story. So I think those are other ways to tap into it. Well, yes, and as a matter of that is exactly what we did. We’re scaling up, we’re going 2200 square feet to 3700 square feet, because we’re ready for some more space and we want

to have that freedom and flexibility within the space that we have. So it’s a different mentality now. And I just, wasn’t sure my husband would be on board with it, but he jumped right on and he said, okay. So what would you tell your younger self at 25, knowing what you know now?

Well, first of all, I didn’t really, you know, when you’re 25 and you look at 60 and 65, it’s like really, it feels really old and it felt really, and the people that were 60 and 65 at that time did live archetype, you know, outdated archetype lives. So I think, you know, and I talked to a lot of young people about this who are 25, who are very anxious and have a lot of anxiety

their career and what are they gonna do and like, know, the pressures from their peers and I’m like, stop, you’re 25, you may live to be 90, you have a longer runway, you do not have to boil the ocean, you know, in the next year or two, the way my generation did. You know, we felt like we had to get on a career path, we had to, you know, find a partner, we had to have children, we had, if we chose to have children, we had to buy a house, we had to do all that before we were

And today, you know, I think there is much more of a long of an elasticity to that in in as well as making choices that you never don’t ever want to get married or you don’t want to have children or you don’t. You know, I’ve got plenty of people in the family, myself included. We have no children and many people in the family who are in their 20s and 30s who making decisions. They don’t want to have children. And, you know, you can make you can.

If you go back 40 years, it was really hard independently to make those kinds of decisions. But now it’s very so I wish I I wish I had had the foresight, but I didn’t have enough wisdom to sort of break through the cultural barriers that were there to say, yeah, you know, I, can do a lot of different things. So I would have probably I wish I had that wisdom. So now I’m trying to impart that wisdom to 25 year olds.

I love that. That’s great. Well, somebody needs to that because I do see a lot of anxiety in the younger people right now. We have a lot of people we serve in our community, some are in their twenties and thirties and you can see the angst on their face. I really feel for them because in the end, you’ve got to really enjoy life along the journey and the journey is meant to be not easy.

But if we take our time and make good decisions based on values, we’re going to be happier. So happy based on money and all of the things that would please other people. need to please ourselves. Exactly right. Well, what are three takeaways you’d like to share with our listeners today? I think the top takeaway around this conversation is release yourself from self -imposed ageism, self -imposed ageism. You know, we get

It’s changing, but we still get so many cultural cues around aging and therefore ageism is embedded in a lot of our culture and society and what we get, the input we get from the world around us. It’s just the opposite in Asia. If you go to Singapore, you go to Japan, once again, there’s a whole different attitude about it. But if you release yourself from self -imposed

The byproduct of that is you don’t get stuck into this thing of, that’s not age appropriate. You get stuck into a vision that I want to be, it’s person appropriate. That in fact, you may want to build a house, you know, a new house in the second half of your life. You may want to do many things that you’re holding yourself back from doing and the barriers are your own. So release yourself from those barriers. And that’s part of the art of your re -imagination.

process. I think the part two of that is reimagination and reinvention is possible at any age. You can do it at 30, 50, 70, 90. You can reimagine your life and your life path at any age. And oftentimes we once again put that barrier in front of us and say, well, I can’t do that because. And then my last takeaway would

you are probably gonna live longer than you think. So are you prepared for that? Are you prepared to, do you have purpose? Do you have a reason to get up in the morning? Are you healthy? Are you watching your numbers? Are you looking at your financial security? Like, you prepared to live a long life? And once again, you know, if you’re healthy, you may live a much longer life than you think. And you often hear these stories of people

saying, I didn’t think I was gonna live this long, or I didn’t think, or I’m afraid the number one concern is people are afraid they’re gonna run out of money. So are you prepared? Are you doing the things that are gonna give you a nice and lovely life as you live longer? And that may mean you and I are from the same bolt of cloth. We wanna work forever and do our respective businesses forever.

You may want to work longer, but doing something that you really love and you’re passionate about to make additional money, et cetera. But be prepared to live a longer life because it’s here. It’s here. I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your book. And I am so glad you’re doing what you’re doing. And I do encourage everyone to read the show notes. Go check out Michael’s website, read his articles and join the join the movement because.

Honestly, it’s huge and I think the opportunities are amazing for all of us. So Michael, it’s pleasure. up for our newsletter. It’s a freebie. Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Michael, and we look forward to seeing you around, hopefully in New York. Gail. Great to see you. Take care.

Many interior designers today maintain one or more social media accounts as a means of promoting themselves and their firms. Many also say they don’t get much new business from their social media efforts. In part that may be because they’re not really familiar with the best ways to leverage their social media presence.

In this episode, Gail talks with Laurie Laizure, founder of the Interior Design Community (IDC). As the name implies, the Interior Design Community was established to be an online place where design industry professionals come together and share tips, tricks, and industry information, ask questions, or just vent. Today, with some 94,000 members, the IDC has a presence on Instagram and Facebook. Its activities include offering questions of the day to encourage designers to share and learn from one another, spotlighting interior designers doing exciting projects, and sharing the industry news or initiatives that matter most to its members.

Laurie’s expertise with social media goes back to the early days of Google+ a decade ago. She has been experimenting with and testing various social media technologies and services ever since. The key to any and all social media success, she explained, is commitment.

“If you really want to be great at social media you have to spend a lot of time at it,” she said. “Don’t do social media if you’re not going to do it well.”

That involves not only keeping your content fresh but also making time to interact with viewers, followers and queries. It’s called “social” media for a reason. “Engagement is everything,” she said. People coming to your social media channel or page are not just passively eyeballing images, videos and other content. They are looking for a response from you.

What kind of content should you post? “Share what you know,” Laurie advised. Don’t just post photos of projects with no information or explanation. Viewers want to know how you did it and why you did it. Combine great visuals with storytelling. Think “infotainment.”

Be clear about who you are trying to reach. “Designers often make the mistake of posting as though they are posting to other designers, not to potential clients,” she said. What do potential clients care about and want to know? Take time to understand what their problems and challenges are. Offer them solutions, and demonstrate how working with you can save them time and money.

Laurie also shared some best practices for posting on different platforms, as well as strategies for growing your following. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e8-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about the Interior Design Community, go to the IDC website at interiordesigncommunity.com.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Welcome, Lori. We have known each other for so many years and I’ve always admired your commitment to the interior design industry. So I want you to tell us a bit about your background. How did you get involved in the industry in the first place? Well, it was sort of by accident. I came into this industry from the printing industry. I worked in the fine art reproduction industry for a long time. I knew that industry very well, knew all the players in that industry well.

And I’d run across this material that was at the time very new that you print on it, stick it onto a wall and peel it off. was a peel and stick wallpaper material. Back when digital printed wallpaper was like not even out there yet, really. And I recognized it was something that would be kind of interesting to do. I thought it would be, you know, something that would take, you know, as far as if you’re thinking of the fine art reproduction market,

you don’t have to frame it. don’t have to, you’re really just cutting the pieces, rolling them, boxing them and shipping them rather, very little finishing goes into it. but there, and there’s a lot of quantity of materials used for wallpaper. So I thought this is a really interesting product. And I think that I might want to do something with it. At the same time, my brother was an addict. And unfortunately we, my husband and I had to take custody of

He had three kids, we had one of our own. And so overnight we went from a house of like one family of three. And I, at the time worked for a company where I had to do some traveling, my husband worked for a company where he was doing some traveling, so we were juggling that. And we got custody of these three little kids who needed a lot of help and care. And we loved them so much, we wanted to give them as much attention as possible. So it kind of seemed like…

well, this is the right time to do this. You know, let’s just go into this wallpaper business. When I wasn’t really a hundred percent committed or prepared to do that. And so I thought, you know what, one of the things I hit on really quickly was condo complexes. And I got a bunch of them in the local area to put our samples in and we started getting orders from those people. But I knew I needed to invest in website and I needed to invest in social media.

and that was brand new and I needed to get in touch with people that would specify this kind of material. And so I kind of thought it’d be great. I joined a couple of interior design chats on Twitter and I just found it was really like there was nowhere to go to share information. I was really starting to get super fascinated about digital marketing and websites and like I just fell into that bucket and just like absorbing as much as I could and

and paying attention to it. And I had felt like I had information to share and that other people probably had information to share. And I didn’t, how do we, there was nowhere to share it. Like Twitter was just not a space that allowed for you to go into deep conversation. Like, are you using the scheduling tools to get onto Pinterest when Pinterest was brand new? And how are you getting conversions from

emails and how are you doing? You know, there were just so much of it out there and, you know, so many tips and tricks and so many new emerging products that I, you know, I felt like I could share some information I could learn from someone else. And then at the time, Google Plus was the place to be because they were, you know, they’re they’re they own search. Right. So like 90 percent of search happens on Google. And

At the time, their social media network, Google +, if you put a link in it, it would automatically index that link faster. They were doing really neat things with this thing called authorship, where you’d have a picture of your own face on your blog to show that you had authority on a specific subject, which was awesome. And they started this thing called Communities. And I thought, okay, I’m gonna start this thing. I’m just gonna do it. I didn’t care what would happen to it at the time. I was just

I’ll have a spot. I’ll invite some people I’ve met through Twitter and whatever to come into this group and see where goes. And I didn’t really have any expectations. I just started interior design community and within a day we had over 200 members and it just never stopped growing wherever we put it. I mean, it just, and it sort of became a bigger focus and more, I became more passionate about it than the wallpaper business. So I ended up selling the wallpaper business

focusing on that. So that’s really how I jumped into it. Long story, but. Wow, that’s great. Well, and you’ve got a real passion for it. And you also have a passion for social media. I’ve seen you everywhere for a very, very long time. And so how did you learn how to use it so well, so quickly? I think it’s a lot of mixture of reading from reliable sources that are

doing or developing these products and also testing for yourself to see what works. I’m gonna be straight up with you. Like if you’re really gonna be great at social media, you have to spend a lot of time doing it because they want you on the platform. So you have to be able to have the time to do that. So my kids would be at school or when everybody’s playing video games, I’m on there doing

testing a post or responding to someone or in DMs or putting a story up or making a graphic or something like that. So I was always trying to figure it out and trying to see what worked and what didn’t work and how that tested. I’m a very analytical person. So I would definitely look at the analytics and see what worked and what wasn’t working and what people responded to versus.

what they didn’t respond to and how I could grow. I actually really liked the process of growing, but I also liked how rewarding it was to help as many people as we were helping over time. It’s such a wonderful thing when you’re like, hey, you could do this an easier way and you tell someone and then they come back to you two weeks later and they’re like, thank you so much, that helped me so much. You’re just

It’s like a little drug almost, you know, that endorphin that you get from like helping someone solve a problem. And we just did that over and over and over and over and over again, thousands of thousands of times. So it just, it was exciting. fun. What platforms are the most important ones for designers today? You know, visual platforms I think are still the most popular. So if I were investing in, you

in social media as a designer today, I would still be on Instagram. think that leading into doing more video content and duplicating that video content onto TikTok, because I think TikTok is the fastest growing social media network there is right now. So and you can it’s do it’s duplicate. So you can put it on as real. You can put it on as a TikTok. You’re not spending more time doing it. It’s just one piece of content. Plus, I think that there’s just really

a great way to use video to tell a story. People are not expecting and actually there’s science that goes along with this. They don’t want polished videos of you with professional videographer making it look sparkly and like a commercial. want real, like, tell me the truth. How does that work? They want the real advice. They want that realness from you. And there are so many…

points in a designer’s day that I just see that that’s content. That’s content right there. You when you came in to your client site and you know, the tile was the wrong tile. That’s content. And not only are you creating content for your audience, but you’re also teaching your potential next client how you work, what the process of design looks like. You you can’t complain.

that like HGTV or the TV thing is is unrealistic for designers and then not provide another alternative. And the alternative is share what you know. And it’s beyond the pretty picture. It’s beyond the finished, everything’s curated image, which we all know if you’ve ever been on a Photoshop or design, all the other rooms around it look terrible while

propped everything up to a perfect in this one little picture, the reality of design. Why did you choose the things you chose? Why did you do this in this way? What is your process? What are you saving your client from thinking about just because you have these thoughts in your head? So it’s so much content that a designer can bring to the table that visually and storytelling can entertain.

their audience, but also educate them. So edutainment. Yeah. Yes. Infotainment is, guess, infotainment is the way to go. OK. So also just a question, since you mentioned that you should be posting also on TikTok. What about Facebook? What about LinkedIn? What do you think about those platforms?

I would think different for LinkedIn. mean, I think that there’s ways to be strategic on LinkedIn. You you could link in with business owners in your local area. You could link in with editors for magazines you want to be published in. You could link in with brands that you want to work with. You know, there’s a strategy there too, a thoughtful strategy and reaching out and one -off

and showing what you do on every platform has their own strategy and you can be successful on every any platform you choose to to go for. But they’re all different on Facebook. I think ads are a great way to do it, but really super, super targeted ads. So if I were a designer in where I live, I would put together instead of like women from, you know,

40 to 60, I wouldn’t make that a broad, you know, an audience. I would make it like men and women, a certain age. would make it people who follow the local boarding school or people who follow, who are, who like the Mercedes dealership in my town, who like the Land Rover dealership, people

are belong to the Manchester Country Club. Things like that, where you can create these small little pockets of ads. And then I would do an ad of what, with my best photography and my best pictures of what I do and advertise that, are you looking to renovate? Are you da -da -da? And be the solution and think about, oftentimes I think about marketing from,

The way I market is different than the way a designer should market. And that sometimes I always, have to bridge that gap. Like this is how you, I can give you all the tips on how you could get designers to follow you, but they want clients, potential clients to follow them. And so they have to start thinking in the mindset of not designers. I see this all the time actually, is designers will make a mistake of posting like they’re posting to other designers.

and they relate to their peers and not to their potential client. And they have to think about what is my potential client care about? What matters to, I think about that from designers. I think what do they care about? What are they afraid of? at this point we have 11 years of doing this. I’ve heard from hundreds of designers. So I know what they’re passionate about. I know what they fear.

I’ve had heart to heart conversations with designers. I’ve had phone calls with tears. Like I’ve heard it all at this point. know, I know, I know designers very well. I know a lot about them and you need to know that much about your potential clients. You need to know, you know, are they overworked? Are they tired? Are they, you know, do they have easy time communicating, a hard time communicating? How do they like to be communicated with? You know,

Is it the man making decisions or the woman making decisions? Do they have kids? Do they have no kids? Do they love sports? they value having free time or they really workaholics? All of the things that you can think of that encapsulates a client. You have to think about how to categorize them and how to meet

in their needs, you know, and how you can work with them. And I think that’s a lot about like, that’s really all marketing is, is knowing who you’re talking to, you know, at the end of the day. Sure. And understanding their problems and having a solution for that. Yeah. Right. Because, I mean, that’s what they’re buying, right? At the end of the day, they’re buying that solution to the problem. So, you know, and understanding what they’re going through in the process, I think

Sometimes the design gets this bad rap that it’s very exclusive and prices are gonna go start going up. But the reality that I see in design is that it’s a navigator in the process of construction that saves money and time because they’re able to, they’ve done this.

so many times before, so they know the process and they know where you can fall into problems and they know how to get you to the right conclusions that are gonna give you the best results. And that saves you money and that saves you time. And I think that’s rarely talked about in design. It’s always like the luxury of it when really there’s so much more that goes into thoughtful decisions that really save time, save money.

Those are all very true statements. And I think that’s a really good point, which helps people not just in their social media, but also thinking about how they close a client deal. Somebody comes to them and they talk to that client. That’s what the client needs to know is what is that connection? What can they do saving the money, saving the time? All of those things are really critical to buyers too. And it’s many closings of a deal. It’s not just one closing of the deal, the closing of the deal.

where yes, they’re now your client, that’s one closing, but then you have hundreds, if not thousands of closings of sales every time you talk to them. You’re selecting lamps, you’re selecting sofas, you’re closing, closing, always be closing, you’ll be seized. That’s definitely a big part of it. So let’s go to this next question, which is really talking about how much the algorithms have changed for a lot of the

platforms, including Instagram and Facebook and all of those. So what are some of the keys to growing your following since today it’s not as easy as it was even five or 10 years ago? You know, the real thing that’s really helping me grow is video. I do as if you follow Interior Design Community, we have two posts for you normally do, which is one is a meme, funny video post, and

get me followers. They do, because they have and they get a lot more traction than my questions. But the questions get more comments and more conversation. they’re two different vehicles that I drive. One is going out there to people I don’t know, know, so that video gets shared. You know, we have videos that get shared a thousand times, two thousand times. So not only are my followers seeing it, but

their followers are seeing it, if they’re sharing it. So that’s how I will get new followers through video, especially videos that have information in them that people wanna share. So something funny, something interesting, anything that will get you shares is going to get you more followers, but then you still need things that you don’t always, that doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to use the same tool every time. And so we do questions, which maybe they don’t get as much,

new followers from our questions, but we get great conversations that are happening with the people that are in our tribe. So, you know, I think that they’re both very valuable to what we’re doing here. know, one is that like comic relief and making people feel like they’re not alone. And the question also like makes people feel not alone, gives them education, helps them.

navigate a difficult situation, those kinds of things. Should our listeners focus on one platform over another and or that should they just focus on one platform like Instagram? You know, I think it depends on what what they have time to do and what they want to do. You know, if you really hate social media, you don’t have to do social media. There are other marketing avenues for you. Maybe maybe you would like

Pick up every magazine that’s local to you and national for you. And you want to write down every writer and every editor and you want to link in with them and you want to really work on getting yourself in magazines. That’s like that’s what you want. You want to get in blogs and you want to network with like like minded businesses. know the people that would have clientele that would attract the same clientele that you have. Like maybe you’re going to network with the owner of the local steakhouse because

he’s bringing in that luxury client too. And how can you, maybe they do an event where they have a wine food pairing thing and they have a little talk or something and you’re at the golf club and they have maybe a little women’s group that comes in or something. There’s always networking opportunities in your surrounding area that are boots on the ground, go out and meet people. If you don’t like social media, you don’t have to use

You don’t have to do it. I people feel like it’s a must. It’s better to not do it if you’re not gonna do it at all. You know what I mean? Like if you’re just gonna once a year do a post, it’s confusing to people. Like, are you in business? Are you not in business on here? You know, those kinds of things. And then you have to remember it’s social. So there is a component of

that doesn’t shut off and that can be annoying. like there is, I’m communicating with designers and all hours of the day. Sometimes I’ll have a designer bring a problem to me when I’m going through a problem myself, personally. So there’s things like that that can happen and you try to have to like, but there’s still that job of that, of that communication. They don’t know that they’re talking to you at a time when…

whatever just happened in your own life, those kinds of things. So because of social media, it is not real life. It’s not, these aren’t, it’s part of your life, but it’s a very visual, this is what I’m sharing. This is what people see. There’s a whole other part of it that people don’t see and that’s reality. So I think it’s just, it’s about what you choose to do. And then making a plan.

like us being strategic about it and how are you gonna go about it to get the results that you want? So if it is picking one, that’s the time that you have to dedicate to it. Looking at all of them, thinking about where strengths and weaknesses lie. Like, are you better on email than you are on trying to get on a video? Maybe LinkedIn would be better because you can like network with people.

locally or Facebook groups would be a good way for you to interject that you’re a designer or maybe you’re not great at taking any, you want to be able to participate in content, don’t want to produce content, things like that. Being honest with yourself about

Well, and it’s interesting because our team, I like LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn most days. Erin is on Instagram every day and we haven’t touched Twitter in years. Facebook, well, you know, might get a little attention. either. I haven’t touched Twitter in years. TikTok. So we’ve kind of picked our areas and I just happen to like LinkedIn because I’m more business oriented and she’s more visually oriented. So we kind of split our

responsibilities. So maybe you can find somebody within your own company that has an interest in one or the other and they can be the chairman of that particular. I think that’s a great idea. You know, I mean, it doesn’t have to always be you, you know, and then sometimes you can use resources or ideas to like get your content calendar put together too, you know, so that you’re, you know, if someone else, if you’re not great with video, but maybe you have someone on your team that is great on video.

you allow them to do some video content for you or you think about how you can fit that into the content calendar for the year, you know, and how that could work. I hear you. Okay. Social media impact SEO on a designer’s website.

Well, there’s lots of ways that it doesn’t necessarily impact SEO because they’re not really super linked. You can put your Twitter link and your Instagram and your LinkedIn and all of those on the bottom of your page, but they have their own search optimization. People do search now on Instagram for, it is its own search engine.

It’s almost they’re disconnected in that way. SEO works just as, I mean, that’s really where Instagram and LinkedIn have gone is to create their own, basically it’s like their own Google. So you can search that way. You can find people that are in your area that way. A lot of people vet designers through social media without even ever going to a Facebook page or website. And I have designers who don’t have a website at all. They just have social media.

So, but it could be great for us for how interior design community, I use sometimes the questions of the day as a springboard for blog content. So they’re great because they have great, know, our members contribute such amazing answers that we can create a blog article around that topic. And we can pull quotes from

our members about what they said about certain topics and we’re able to include, give them a link back to their Instagram page. So we’re pushing people back to look at them. But it’s really solid, amazing advice from people that are experienced in what they do. So it helps us for SEO that way. I see.

What are some of the best practices for posting and how often and what type of posts get the most engagement? I know you talked about video being really important today, but besides that, what else? I would say it depends on the platform. So sometimes the best case scenario is working in a group, like in one of the groups. LinkedIn has some amazing groups, Facebook has some amazing groups, and sometimes networking in those groups is the best way to

to get engagement. And so you might go in in the morning and just chit chat about certain things and, you know, answer questions. And then that shows you as an expert and people want to hire you. Sometimes it is creating great a video that is showing what you do and how you do it. You know, I follow this, this woman, I think her name is Erin Setzer, something she is Holmes and she works with

She does a lot of like, she’s more of a contractor type and she does a lot of videos on how they do certain things, like how they hide the outlets or, I remember her doing one on pocket doors where she talks about painting the interior black so that when you’re opening it and closing it, you’re not seeing the guts of the pocket door.

when they put that together, when they’re putting it together, they paint everything black on the inside. And I was like, you know, just these little things that designers think about every day, you know, just little moments that they’re creating. You know, I remember a designer years ago talking about how she’d worked with this fabric and it would snag. And so she didn’t like to send it out to the workroom to be hemmed. She’d have the workroom come and hand hem it.

because if you didn’t do it that way, it just wouldn’t hang correctly because of the way the material worked. so she’s thinking ahead of the game, what can I do to alleviate any kind of worry from my client down the line that I don’t know how to handle these situations. I’m gonna head them off. Well, all of those things that you do,

are also really great content. And what it does is it shows that you’re an expert and you know what you’re doing and how you’re thinking about the process of how you order. Like you have to order the sink before you’re ordering your countertops because you have to give your sink to your countertop fabricator so that it can be under mount, so they can measure it so it can be cut properly to be undermounted.

And some people don’t know, you know, if you were just, they don’t know that your client doesn’t know that, that these are things that you’re thinking about ahead of time, because that’s the process of putting in a kitchen. They just think, you know, I’m giving you the money for the check for the kitchen, you know, and when is all this going to be done? You know, so if you’re showing them, you know, how difficult it is or what the steps are, these are, these are the things that need to happen in this order.

It also educates them about what the job really is and why it takes as long as it takes and what the steps are to go through the process of design. And I think there’s just not enough content out there about that. I think that we could do a lot better job, you know, showing that part of the process and really showing how brilliant designers are. They’re always thinking about

creative solutions to really, you know, difficult problems within a home to provide a client with such a great experience with their own home, like how they live their lives. So it’s just, it’s interesting to me that designers will sometimes choose to just like, just do profile pictures and portfolio pictures over and over and not get into the nitty gritty of like, okay, here’s how that was done. You know what I mean? Like here’s.

here’s what I did on this project, you And even in websites, you know, how often, Gail, do you look at someone’s website, a designer’s website, and their portfolio has no words in it? None. It’s just like the pictures. Which they’re great. Yeah, they’re great, but it’s like, what happened in that project? Like there’s a whole story there. There’s a

story, a huge part of that designer’s life went into those pictures, you know? Tell people what it was. With who they were with the clients, what did they want from you? And these are the same practices you should be doing when you’re pitching to get at your work in magazines too. Like feed the story to the writers. You can go in any magazine and it tells you who the writers are. You can write to that magazine and they’ll send you the editorial calendar.

you can write to them and say, hey, I think this would work for your June issue next year. You’re going to be talking about outdoor kitchens. And we did this beautiful outdoor kitchen in the Hamptons. we did this, here’s the client. They had this problem. We came in and we came up with a solution. And we wanted to position the stove in such a way that the

The fumes from the gas grill wouldn’t reach into the home or into the pool area. You know, we were, this is how we solve that problem with events. And, you know, we put these plants here to detract from mosquitoes and, you know, all the things that you do think about in design and then feed that feed it as a story and then put in like, obviously like brands really liked because you’re that brands love a shout out, you know, you’re building partnerships.

You know, certainly if you’re pitching to a magazine, think about which brands you use, their advertisers, they care about, mean, that’s what they care about, you know? So, and you have to think about these things. If I were coming onto your website, what would I want to know about you? What would I want to think? You know, how am I going to learn about what you do if you’re not telling me what you do and what your process is? So I think the more we are open about the process

letting that and letting ourselves be vulnerable in that because it is hard to do. I’m not going to say it isn’t to be vulnerable and to share yourself in that way and to mess up a little bit and maybe not look perfect when you’re telling the story, but you’re getting out the story. I think it’s I think it’s really charming and it’s it lets people know who you really are. And that’s who they’re working. That’s who they want to hire this you the person, you know, so and you the team.

So knowing a little bit about that is really good. Sure. How important is engagement on social media? I think engagement is everything. I honestly think it’s, you know, it’s about we’re all people. Social media is should be social. You know, it’s it’s about knowing people and getting to, you know, I have met so I mean, you know, we met so many wonderful people on social media.

and that I never would have, I I live in a small city in New Hampshire. I would not have met the people that I’ve met in my career if I had just stayed in my little bubble and not had a social life beyond it. I have lots of local friends and lots of local family, but in order to be online and to do this online, you have to give of yourself and you have to learn about other people and be social with them.

and engage with them and talk with them. If you’re putting out content and you’re never giving back to the people that you’re just putting something, you’re not going to go anywhere. People want someone responds to them and wants someone who listens to them and cares about them. And it’s gotta be kind of, I mean, it really does have to be genuine in that way, you know? And that’s a really wonderful thing is designers really love what they do.

So that’s not gonna be hard for them to share. Like this is what I do and this is what I love. And then like, just let that be, the work is the work and just let that live there and people will like it or they won’t and don’t be so afraid of that. If someone is just starting on social media, hasn’t given it much attention, how important is it in the marketing arsenal today? I know you said that

People don’t want to do it, don’t do it, but if you’re counseling somebody, what do you say? You know, I should say, if I’m a student, if you’re a student and you know you’re in the world of design and you, I think the very first thing is I would tell people, claim your social media, claim your web address early, start thinking about that stuff from an early standpoint.

and really giving it some serious thought, because I know so many designers who’ve regretted the decisions that they’ve made with branding. And there are lots of schools of thought on it. Like, you want to be, from my name, Lori Lasher, do I want to be Lori Lasher into your design? Do I want to be Lori Lasher Studios? Do I want to have my name in there? Do I want to have like,

Maybe I just want to be, you know, spotlight design or something like that, you know, and what play out the scenarios of that, you know, so how could that work? Like, for instance, what if you get married and your new name is not that name you picked? What if you get divorced and that name is doesn’t feel like your name anymore? What if you hire people and then they don’t? mean, the school thought was always your name plus design and

I don’t know that that is a really the best strategic plan anymore because of so many life changes that can happen. And I think that also like you’ll have, you know, junior staff come on and then maybe they don’t want to deal with the junior staff because your name is on the, you know, you’re the name that they hired and they want you and how do you get them to respect the junior staff as well as they do you. And that stuff kind of plays

in several scenarios over and over again. We’ve seen it from, you know, people who have their children on their team or people who have spouses on their team or just people that they hire on their team. And it’s hard, it’s a hard transition. And then to build a business that is, has a succession plan from the very beginning, thinking about if I wanted to sell this business in 20 years, how am I going to be able to do that? So thinking about these things, I know it sounds

crazy as a person who’s just starting the idea, but you’re buying real estate and you’re even if it’s free, these are you’re picking your handle. You’re picking your website. You’re picking those things and you’re kind of thinking like, what do I want my future career to be? And you could do a few of them because you just have different plans. Like, do I want to go with my name? These are free to do. So why not? Your name design, your name.

you know, buy the URL and then buy another name you really like, you know, maybe your mom made name and, you know, house or something, you know, whatever you like that could look like a plan for your future. And then if I was a student, I would be networking with people that could give me a job. When I get out of design school, I would be posting what I am learning. You know, we did a post a while ago that was asked our

our community, what would you be looking for in a hire from a design school? And they said, we really like people who know social media. We really like people who know CAD. We really like people who are team players. So show some of these qualities while you’re networking, while you’re in school, because you have content. Once you graduate, your content kind of disappears a little

You don’t have those weekly projects that you’re supposed to, or monthly projects that you’re supposed to be working on for school. You don’t have access to the samples. You don’t have access to the CAD programs that you have for free. All of those things that you were playing around with for school are content to show that you know what you’re doing, that you’re building knowledge. So I always tell people, it’s free to do this. Why not sign up and get your names, put those all in a, you

in a file that you’ve got like, you’ve got claimed URLs on everything. If you don’t use them, you don’t have to, but you have them if you want to use them down the line. Okay. Well, you’ve given us a lot of tips. So let’s pick three that are your favorites to share to end the call today. Sure. I would say, well, that one, like claim your spaces, especially if there’s something new comes out. Like even if you’re not going to use it, I remember when

when threads came out for Instagram, that same day, I’m not a big Twitter person anymore, but I was like, I’ll just sign up for threads. what they did was they had everybody who follows you automatically followed you on threads in the beginning. I don’t know if it still works that way, but so you’d get the followers really quickly because they already follow you on Instagram. If they signed up for threads, they’d automatically follow you on threads. So if there’s a new social media that you’re

that’s interesting. Get your name right away. Why not? And start to recognize what you’re good at. I think the second one is start to recognize what you’re good at, what you like to do, what the resources on your team look like, and divide the marketing plan that makes sense for the skills that you have. And third, always remember who you’re marketing to. Always. Because you’re not marketing to your friends or your family or your fellow design.

friends out there, you are marketing to a potential client and you really need to think about that. Like you’re on, you know, criminal minds and you’re an FBI agent trying to profile someone. You need to build a profile for your client and you need to know who they are, what they want and how they, what they respond to and think about content that goes along with that, know, educating them about what goes along with that, not just what you want to share, but also what they want to

Awesome. These are great tips and I really appreciate it so much. I think this is really interesting and I’m sure we could spend hours having conversations about social media. But thank you for being on the podcast. Yes, thank you.

As with any major transaction, many things can go wrong when selling a business. You need to be well-informed and diligent from the very beginning. Some mistakes or oversights could end up reducing the value of your firm or saddling you with a high tax liability. Working with qualified professionals from the start can help ensure you get the most value and other conditions you want from your sale.

In this episode, Gail invites attorney Manny Clark to the podcast to discuss what factors owners need to consider and plan for when deciding on their exit strategy from their business. Manny is a corporate and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) lawyer and shareholder in the firm Winstead, P.C. His practice is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Manny stressed the importance of developing an exit strategy as early on in the creation of the business as possible. He also recommended that when it comes time to execute that exit strategy owners engage the counsel of qualified professionals at the start. Doing so can help prevent costly mistakes or delays and ensure that the seller gets the best deal possible.

Gail asked Manny what owners should ask when seeking a professional to work with. First, he said, ask them about their ability to handle your transaction.

Manny then walked through the three major stages of executing the exit strategy. “The single most important thing you have to do is consider that you have to exit your business,” he said. Be clear in your mind what you want your exit to look like and who should be involved in it. That includes putting together a team of qualified professionals to help you with various aspects of the process, such as an M&A lawyer or broker, investment advisor, CPA, and evaluator.

The other stages involve setting your house in order, especially your financials, and organizing your business. “You ultimately have to understand how your business grows,” Manny said, and what are the prospects for future growth for the buyer.

Manny also listed some of the biggest mistakes sellers make in exiting their businesses as well as some of the challenges of trying to sell a small business. For many more details, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e7-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Manny and to contact him directly, go to his page on the Winstead, P.C. website.

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Hi, Manny, thank you for joining us today on the Creative Genius podcast. You and I chatted a few months ago and I thought it would be of great value to our listeners to think about their exit strategy. We’ve had a few other people on our podcast to talk about their experiences as sellers of businesses and we’ve had people that have been on that are actually brokers for businesses. So now we’re going to talk to you from the aspect of you being an attorney.

So welcome to the podcast. Awesome. I’m so glad to be here. really appreciate the opportunity, Gail, and so excited to talk to you and to speak to you, the creative, genius listeners. All right. Well, thank you so much. Well, let’s talk about your role and how you’re involved with business owners in the process of exiting their businesses.

Absolutely. So, you know, from my perspective, and I’m an &A attorney, very often I’m counseling both buyers and sellers in connection with their &A transactions. And quite a lot of my practice involves counseling sellers as they are preparing for and ultimately implementing their exits from their business. And there are all kinds of different exits. And I’ll talk a little bit more about, you know, what different kinds there

today. But within that role, I’d say I really do three things. know, one, I am primarily there to consult with the seller about what are their objectives with respect to their exit and also to help them understand what is possible in connection with their exit. And I can give a bit of an example for that. So you may have some sellers who are interested in ultimately retiring. They see their exit as a plan

you know, obtain kind of final exit liquidity, you know, infuse their retirement nest egg to prepare for, you know, going off into the sunset. And for those kinds of sellers, counseling them in connection with their transaction may mean helping them enumerate legally, you know, a successor to the business. So that may be in the course of, you know, sale negotiating alongside a buyer for

employment contract to keep the employees associated with the business. It may also involve ensuring that non -compete terms, indemnification terms, which are basically the ways in which a seller covers a buyer for problems with the business that occur, that arise or result from some of the pre -closing activities of the buyer, that those things are appropriate for someone who is ultimately

be leaving the business. So that’s one thing I do it. I try and ensure that your objectives are met in connection with the sale transaction. Secondly, it is advising you with respect to what exactly it is within your buyer’s offer. So as sellers, we obviously as lawyers understand you may not be intimately involved with all of the dynamics of emerging and &A transactions.

However, it’s important to note that it is very much a transaction that sits squarely within the realm of corporate finance. The professionals who are frequently involved in creating their entire lives as finance professionals. is very often corporate development professionals, chief executives, CFOs, who often leading this process within strategic buyers that is companies.

Folks from private equity or very frequently folks who have been analysts and investment bankers at very large investment banks throughout the country. And so the folks you were dealing with are used to certain kinds of transactions or willing to give and are willing to enter into certain types of trades when it comes to a merger and acquisition transaction. And so my job is to help you understand what terms attend those trades,

you can get and what may be unrealistic as a part of that. And then finally, it’s to negotiate on your behalf and ultimately seek a closing on behalf of sellers. So that is, I will try for my position as an &A attorney and with my knowledge to seek the best deal for you, to try and implement whatever exit strategy you would like to implement and that’s possible alongside a buyer and ultimately do all the things that

help you get to a closing, including we need to refer in different individuals, either from my firm or from outside firms to assist. And that’s lawyers, accountants, investment bankers. It is helping you sign things. We’ve done pretty much everything. is core your services at midnight to get signatures if necessary. So that really is my role within the &A process. OK, so you’re babysitting the whole process, in other words. Exactly.

That is that’s precisely it. And we enjoy that. And I enjoy that my pride is this is difficult. And you know, I know it is a trade. It’s a financial trade. And so it is something where someone who is not accustomed to this kind of trade does need a little bit of hand holding. And that’s fine. Everyone needs experts to, you know, to refer to. And in this case, we get to be that for our clients.

Well, it’s very complicated. just finished a podcast with someone else who just sold her business last week, closed on it and is done. And ironically, as an interior designer, she actually has, she was an investment banker first. And so she came into this with a lot of knowledge, but it was so interesting having the conversation and understanding from her perspective that even with that knowledge, she didn’t know all the things that she was going to encounter.

And her comment was that the transaction attorney was the most important part of her whole process of having somebody who really understood the ins and outs of the agreements and how to negotiate those and what the contracts meant. And I just thought I would share that with you because we literally just finished that podcast about an hour ago.

So it is it’s wonderful to hear that. I’m sure that there are clients who, you know, view who share her feelings. You know, from my position, I certainly think it’s the case. We we hold a really interesting position in the set of advisors in the sense that we are, you know, an advisor who, you know, due to our ethical obligations are required to represent you zealously to look towards your interests in either the seller or the company’s

before our own and additionally, even where it may implicate potential conflicts. And we have to get rid of those conflicts from our perspective. in our view, we need to be intimately into what it is you want out of your transaction and fighting for that at all times. So I’m glad that she got that in Connection Threat Transaction. She She ended up with a very successful sale.

She’s very organized and very thorough and luckily has super clean books. So she knew what a lot of what she needed to do to go and prepare for this. Thank goodness. She made it easy on everyone and herself. Well, it wasn’t easy according to her. So that’ll be interesting for everybody to hear that conversation with Kirsten Kaplan. It’s her name. So how soon should you as the transaction attorney be involved in the process of the sale of the business and why so soon?

Sure. I will note, I think there are differing opinions about when to involve a transaction attorney. I would say, I think the preference, this may be the preference among lawyers, but I would say it also, there are quite a lot of number of benefits to it, which is, I think it is important for clients at the start of their entrepreneurial journey to try and establish a relationship, even if it is a small one, with a competent business law

That business law firm can do small things for you. Hopefully that you do not find to be quite taxing when it comes to fees. But having that relationship allows that firm to give you counsel from the beginning. That counsel helps to ensure that what you’re preparing when it comes to your own organizational elements, end up being at the end of the deal or during the deal, one of the most important things that you can do, you make representations to it that often

you know, become what are called fundamental representations in that, you know, a buyer will want coverage for it almost forever in some instances. Having a law firm back you at that stage creates a lot of institutional knowledge for that law firm, such that in connection with the sale transaction, they know where everything is. They know where the contracts are. They need to have written the contracts. In many instances, they may have prepared your organizational documents and can assure you

Pearl Collective (09:48.526)
what you have is something that a buyer would appreciate. I think there’s that benefit, certainly for sellers, and it just, makes it easy for these deals to close. However, I know a lot of sellers probably will not take that route and that’s fine. I would say, barring that, a great place to start with a transactional attorney is probably at the start of the year or 12 months before you believe you’re gonna enter your sale transaction. That’s likely.

around the exact same time that you may have also hired an investment advisor with respect to your transaction. The benefit there is that that is the place where your investment advisor and your lawyer can work together really collaboratively. If you are say, you’ve hired an investment advisor and then investment advisor has determined, look, we think your best price could ultimately be obtained by going to auction, which

your advisor is going to make a blind item, send it out to a number of buyers. You you’ll ultimately produce an information memorandum that will also go to buyers. And eventually you will whittle down to a set number of potential buyers in your transaction. At some point, your buyer may say, look, we want to get anyone out who we don’t think is going to help us get to the best deal. They’re tapping your lawyer to say, I want you to draft a bid.

you know, purchase agreement, which is effectively your version of what a perfect, perfect document will look like. that puts you in a really good position. And that’s something that often can occur six, five, six months out from an actual sale. This is where buyers are taking a look at it and saying, you know, Hey, I think I can live with this. I don’t think I can live with this. but at that point that you have secured that lawyer so far ahead.

They’ve had the opportunity to really dig into your books, get a sense of where the holes, how can we fix them? They may have prepared purchase agreements for you. They may have otherwise done things to help you get ready for your sale transaction. And ultimately they’re helping you negotiate your LOI. LOI, that stuff right there. I apologize for that too. A letter of intent. that

Pearl Collective (12:08.738)
That’s generally the document that you will execute with the buyer that puts you under exclusivity, which is your agreement with the buyer that you will not go out and try and sell your company to someone else. that, you know, having being in that position as an attorney to advise you with respect to all of those aspects, including your LOI, we get to help shake the deal for you. Often I find that when clients select us after the

we’re inheriting a deal that takes the shape that the buyer wanted it to take. And sometimes that doesn’t have the best consequences from a tax perspective or legal perspective from your indemnification. We want to put you in the best position possible. And that’s why I suggest earlier is a little better here. And you also mentioned another &A, which define that because some people don’t know what that means.

Yeah, &A is mergers and acquisitions generally. I use that to refer to all kinds of different transactions that a seller would ultimately enter into that involves a transfer with respect to the business. And that transfer could be I’m selling equity in my business, which is stock or my membership interest in my LLC. I’m selling the assets of my business. So someone, a buyer out there may say,

Well, gee, I don’t want to buy everything in the business, but you may have some really great ideas or a great IP related to something out in the world that they can generate cash flow. And they may just buy that. That’s still an &A transaction. And so it is any sale involving a major portion of your business or all of your business. OK, very good.

The other thing that I think is important here is in finding the right professional to work with you in your transaction, what are some of the questions someone should be asking to make sure they’ve got the right person on board? Absolutely. And I’ll note with respect to these questions, I think the key thing to look for when you’re talking to a lawyer is you want specificity about their ability to handle your matter.

Pearl Collective (14:29.848)
how they would handle it and what they think is important that you should also find important in your manner. So I think the first question is really, have you done deals of a similar size involving similar businesses that you can talk to me about? And what you would wanna hear from your lawyer is yes. And they may be able to tell you, I’ve done these deals, if you’re looking at or you believe your valuation is somewhere around

you know, $10 million, you know, $10 million in total, you may say, hey, I want to hear that you’ve done $10 million deals pretty often that you may do them pretty frequently and for similar businesses. The reason for that is that there are different issues that attend different businesses. You know, a sale of a manufacturing company that, you know, manufactures some product that may be highly explosive, for

The issues that attend that are very different from the issues that attend the sale of an interior design business. And you want an attorney who knows how to deal with those issues, knows how to also assuage the feelings of a buyer who may say, hey, I don’t feel comfortable with the particular issue that has come up. What comfort can you grant about it? So I think that’s the key. And you want to hear specificity about someone having done similar deals.

The second thing that I want to get a sense from is what does the person think are the principal issues associated with your transaction? Some of this is going to be dependent upon what kind of trade, what kind of transaction you’re ultimately interested in. If you’re being bought out by another company, similar to yours, that may be a competitor, the issues that attend that transaction may be very different from the ones that attend a

that is led by a private equity sponsor. So in that case, want your buyer to be able to, not your buyer, but your attorney to be able to suggest to you, here’s some of the issues you should be aware of in connection with a strategic transaction in this industry. For a strategic, in many cases, they’re gonna say, well, we may not actually want you as a part of the business. We may wanna close it. And that may, or your exit strategy may not be something you

Pearl Collective (16:51.214)
It may be the case they view, hey, we take you out, you know, the cash flow that we’re able to generate from grabbing your business, you know, sufficient for our purposes, but you look at your business say, I want my employees to continue. want, you know, I’m intending to for this and my legacy to continue through this business. And so you want your lawyer, you want to hear things from your lawyer that suggest here’s what you should be thinking about while you enter into your deal. And then the last thing that I’d want to get a sense on

who exactly is going to be leading this transaction and who’s going to be doing the work? The reason is that, and I’m a law firm attorney, I just know the damn dynamics of how we prosecute these kinds of transactions. Some transactions are ones where you’re going to be able to demand the attention of the partner associated with the transaction. So that is the lawyer with the most experience in most cases. It’s not always the case that they’re the most experienced, but they may be.

And there are other transactions where it may actually be beneficial for some of their associates, a talent, some of the younger talent to be doing a lot of the work with the transaction. You want to get a sense, how do they want to approach it? And what are the fees associated with those folks? What can they provide an estimate on what they believe those fees are? And you want the approach to make sense to you. In many cases, or particularly smaller companies,

Entrepreneurs want the most senior person on the deal close to them that they can ask questions to. They want to be walked through this. It’s their first &A deal and it makes complete sense. You should pick the team that gives you that confidence because at the end of the day, you will be reliant very heavily for your own sanity on having confidence in your legal team. So I think those are the three key things I would ask. OK, great.

I know it’s very different, but let’s just say in our industry, the typical size range of company might be two million to say $8 million. So if that’s the case, percent of what dollars should somebody set aside to do a transaction with you or with your firm? Absolutely. And so I think this is likely going to apply to my firm. And you know, some firms may disagree. I think this will apply pretty commonly across the legal industry.

Pearl Collective (19:14.798)
I would say take your transaction, what you believe to be your transaction value. So if you are an $8 million company or a $10 million company, and you would say, what is between maybe 0 .5 % to about 2 % of the transaction, that’s probably going to be your legal fees. If you’re on the smaller end, we get a little bit closer between 1 .5 % to 2%. If you are closer to $8 million or $10 million,

you’re more likely to be around 1 % or less. I’ve done a $2 million deal this year. We came in somewhere just under 1 % ultimately than what we charged. And some of this also is dependent on what kind of transaction you’re entering into. If ultimately you’re entering into a transaction where the sale really is a management buyout. So you have really sophisticated

you know, really sophisticated management team, they want to take this business over for you. They may not need all of the same things that another buyer needs, in which case, you for our purposes, legal professionals, we don’t need to dig in with you or with the buyer about all of these same things. And so our fees are less. So depends on the trade, but I’d say 0 .5 to about 2 % is, you know, generally across the

Okay, great. At least it gives us a number to work with because there are so many people involved in this whole process that somebody needs to know before they go into the sale. What am I going to have to pay? How much do I have to pay upfront? How much do I have to pay at the end of the transaction just so they can plan and know what their exit dollars will be? Absolutely. Okay, so another question is prepping for the sale.

If you were to break it down, and I don’t know if 10 steps is the right number, but you can tell me what you think the right steps would be, what are the vital things to prepare? Absolutely. So, you know, I tried in preparing for this, I tried to prepare an infographic that I think may be helpful to your listeners. I’ve entitled it, 9 Best Practices for Maximizing Sale Value. I think you should be able to get alongside your show notes.

Pearl Collective (21:37.358)
And I’ll talk a little bit about this here, but I’ve broken it down into three sections. What you should be doing three years out from your sale, what you should be doing about a year out from your sale, and then what you should be doing roughly six to three months prior to your sale. What I would say at the forefront of this is that the single most important thing you should do is consider that you have to exit your business.

everyone will exit their business. so it is important at generally at the forefront, when you establish your business or at some point you’re doing your career to consider what do I want my exit to look like? Who should be involved in it? Having those things in mind will help some of these other things come into focus. so that really, that’s the first point. It’s really understanding what is your exit strategy.

you know, to ultimately pass this business down to someone else, like a son or a daughter, or some person on your management team. Are you trying to seek maximal value, you know, out of the sale of your business? Are you, you know, potentially a person who says, I’m ready for the next go, I want to grow this to be so much bigger. And in actuality, I think what I really need is a capital partner. Getting that clarity will help determine quite a lot about what your ultimate exit looks

and will help also shade how you direct your business for the future. So that’s the first point and the first item. Point number two is getting your house in order. Getting your house in order is about doing all of the cleanup things you need to do to prepare for a sale. I think firstly and primarily is the case that among lower middle market businesses and lower middle market is these are generally company between five million to $50 million.

of annual revenue. Among those businesses, it is often the case that they are operating with the intention of doing financial reporting that is for their taxes. And it is to reduce ultimately their tax burden every year. And that’s fine insofar as you’re not trying to sell your business. But when you’re trying to sell your business, you want to be as clear with the buyer about, here is how I choose revenue.

Pearl Collective (24:02.412)
you know, here is the certainty you can have with respect to that revenue. Here are my expenses. And you want to do it in such a way that is generally accepted by the buyer. And the way that we often counsel clients is if you’re going to prepare for a serial transaction, one, if you’ve been using tax basis or cash basis accounting, you really need to move to an accrual accounting system and try and get

your financials in line with GAAP. Often we will recommend to clients and sometimes they are not happy about the costs associated with it or the timing, but audited financials are the best way to do that. Audited financials, apologize. So these audited financials, so that is having an independent public accounting firm come in, review your financials to ensure that they are in compliance with

they go through an exhaustive process to be able to do that and ultimately produce an audit report. When a buyer sees an audit report, they understand the seriousness of the seller. This is a seller who has been maintaining their books in a way that they can want, that has the attestation of an outside accounting firm, and they can put a lot of trust in the financials associated with the business. So I’d say that’s a primary item of getting your house in order. And then it

there are kind of things you may need to do as a seller of a smaller business. Sometimes sellers will commingle assets a bit. So maybe you’ve been running your business out of real estate that you go into on the side. Or alternatively, if you have a car that either the business pays for, getting some of those things out, taking some of these things off of the balance sheet, this is a good practice prior to your sale. Some buyers are willing to deal with it, some are not.

But separating them out, think it’s helpful. And then, moving into the third step, it’s really organizing your business so that it helps to implement your long -term growth strategy. So that is, you ultimately need to understand how is your business grows? How do you achieve more customers? How do you achieve more revenue? And in the three -year period prior to selling, you wanna execute on that such that when you come before a buyer, you can say,

Pearl Collective (26:26.638)
Here’s how we’ve executed. Here’s how we’ve grown. And here’s how I can pass the business to you and what you can look forward to in terms of future growth. So I think those are the first three points. We’ve touched on some of the others in the second section about what you do in 12 to nine months out. You wanna retain professional transaction advisors. Another important item here is you want to get a professional internal deal team. That doesn’t have to be all your employees.

It can be select employees. can be someone, one employee who you feel is very close to you. The reason I recommend this is that the sale process is daunting. It will take up a lot of your time. It can distract you from the business. It is very often the case that businesses following the sale may suffer a bit because the owner has been distracted trying to implement the sale. And so it’s important to have people who you can delegate to and say,

Hey, I need you to handle this while I’m handling this part of the sale process. Or maybe this isn’t a part of the sale process I should touch. Maybe I have an internal expert who can deal with this item. Those people can help you implement the next item, which is number six within the infographic, which is helping you just gather and organize things to get ready for the sale. From there, the last three things you should do six to three months out. One, you’ve got to nail.

your management presentations with potential buyers. They care. You know, they care about these management presentations. They make judgments about whether to buy companies based on the success of those presentations. And the presentations themselves are not merely what you present, you know, in a formal meeting with the buyer. It is also how you and your company behave off the clock when you are attending dinners, you know, with buyer parties. It’s important that you get that

because it ultimately helps you get the best offers and determines if there are offers out there to get. From there, in connection with the process, is once you’ve set up your internal team, it’s leveraging them throughout the process. You will find at some point that you’ll get exhausted. We got a term for it within the law, which is deal fatigue. And it hits generally around the same time. Every deal, it’s about a

Pearl Collective (28:54.668)
to three weeks prior to a deal closing. There’s deal fatigue and it’s real and sellers experience it in a number of different ways. Some walk and say, or I wanna walk from a deal. Some cave on positions they may have otherwise felt strong about. Having that internal deal team to support you emotionally, as well as physically with doing things that’s so important. And then finally, is continue to keep your eye on the ball with respect to the business.

You have to continue to run the business efficiently, not only to help meet the goals of the sale so that you can achieve everything you’re looking to achieve from your purchase price, but additionally putting your business in the place such that when the buyer inherits it, they’re able to achieve what they need to, particularly if you have something like an earn out, which is functional, it’s an agreement that they will pay you based on future success with business. So those are my nine keys. I’ve also got a couple of books as recommended reading.

in there and a few articles. so I definitely would recommend to your readers, take a look at it. I think there’s, I’ve got a little bit of wisdom and then there’s a lot of wisdom in those books. Well, I think a lot of wisdom on your part and I love that. The answers you’re giving, very, very helpful and tactical, which is perfect for this. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see business owners make in the sale process? Absolutely.

The single biggest I’ve actually seen tends to relate to the tax planning. This is very often a multi -million dollar mistake, unfortunately, particularly for folks within the professional services industries. I would say one, if you are a seller and there are many sellers who I would imagine are architecture, interior design firms who have elected to be S corporations, I want to counsel you right

go and talk to the tax advisor and ensure that you and your tax advisor feel comfortable with your historical reporting and your tax practices, your corporate and organizational documents. The reason I say this is I have encountered even recently on transactions, sellers defaulting their S -elections. And so that is your election to be an S -corp and it can result in disastrous consequences in connection with the deal. Some deals will just not close. The buyers will walk away.

Pearl Collective (31:15.596)
because of the tax issues associated with them. And some will ultimately price much lower in the course of the deal. So that is tax planning is key. And I have seen sellers mess that up. I would say, the next one may be misalignment among stakeholders or shareholders within the firm. So if it is the case that you’re on the out with some of your partners and you’re considering a sales transaction, this may be a good time to find a way to get back in with

Because to the extent that they have any ability to demand something in connection with the sale, they’re probably. And we’ve seen that in transactions and it can become emotionally very difficult. Negotiations can be difficult. And additionally, you have a buyer party maybe on the other side saying what is going on. And so it’s crucial that you try and gain as much alignment as you can.

And it may not just be other shareholders or partners, sometimes it’s key employees of the business. It’s, know, assuring them, here’s what we think your place is going to be within this new organization. Here’s what we need you to do. Companies that have the strongest sellers like have this, like there’s no question about it. And we move forward really quickly. The ones that don’t, that’s where we see quite a lot of deal, you know, issues. And oftentimes we see an owner having to make concessions that they wouldn’t.

otherwise have to make with that kind of stakeholder. And then I think it’s really just planning failures with respect to the sale process itself, which is one of that thing. It’s hiring advisors too late or starting on the sale process too late. Starting with sale process too late really being if you’ve not truly considered how your exit will look in the future, when you want that exit to happen, it can sometimes find you.

And sometimes the way it finds you is, hey, your business is doing, you know, it’s returning poorly enough that you feel you may need to seek a sale. And in those situations, buyers, you know, understand that you may not have other options and they approach you with offers that contemplate that. Otherwise not planning to be hiring advisors too late. You know, if I’m hired,

Pearl Collective (33:38.996)
after the LL. I. period, it’s not the case that I can do much with what the deal will look like. So we may have been able to fight for a deal that didn’t involve a really significant chunk of your exit proceeds being treated according to ordinary as ordinary income, is you basically for your personal tax purposes taking that income at one of the highest individual tax rates.

We could fight for that, you know, prior to an LOI and after an LOI, some buyers are really low to retrade. So it’s important to plan for this, grab your body early, you know, be in a position to be knowledgeable about all aspects of your deal and be proactive. I think those are the key, you know, key items that CCOs fail on. You know, but I’m hopeful after

that the creative genius listeners will not be among them. Let’s hope not. All right. So the statistic is not very good for the number of businesses that sell. I think it was something like 20 % overall, which is not very many. And I’d like to know why that is and what can be done to ensure that a seller is able to go through the process and have a successful exit. Yeah, there are, I would say,

probably macroeconomic and other forces that attend why that is the case. One, a lot of businesses fail. I think the statistic that’s thrown around is most businesses actually shutter. Like 80 % of businesses will shutter really quickly after they’re ultimately formed. So think that’s one way that takes out the majority of potential businesses that could see an exit transaction.

For smaller businesses, will say finding a potential buyer willing to write a small check or a check that is appropriate for the size of a smaller business may be difficult or may be difficult to find as a sale at the market value of the business rather than another kind of sale. Like for example, an aqua hire transaction where the buyer says,

Pearl Collective (36:03.114)
you just don’t make enough, you know, for me to really buy your business. I take people. We’ll take what I take your I take your people. I will take the folks associated with your business and bring them on as employees. But I might not buy the business yourself. It is, you know, I am preparing for this. I read some of the materials that I suggested within the the nine tips

You know, of the folks there are private equity investors and they know we are sometimes loathe to write those kind of those checks for smaller businesses. They would rather see a business that has grown and is robust, has reached the growth stage of its business cycle rather than emerging companies. smaller businesses, it’s just hard to write those checks because ultimately this is a business that has not yet achieved sustained profitability. So that’s why a lot of sellers don’t see their exits.

So the reality is to combat that. You know, I think one for sellers is prepare early, you know, and really understand a growth strategy and execute on that growth strategy. And there are a lot of different ways that you can execute. It’s not just simply customer acquisition. There’s, you know, quite a number of commentators who say you should, you know, seriously be considering, you know, buying versus building.

So that is going out and doing some acquisitions on your own. And there are capital providers who will assist with that. But implementing that growth strategy so that you can get to a place that you’re an attractive exit option, I think that’s the key. Interesting. OK. Well, that’s a good one. What I realized is you have so much information here.

I would love to ask you if you would do a second interview so that we can get to the last section of these questions at that point. And why don’t we then end this session today with three takeaways from what you shared earlier in this session. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you again for having me on. think the most important takeaway, number one, is you need to be planning on this from the beginning.

Pearl Collective (38:26.378)
And so maybe it’s the beginning of the business. If that’s not the case for you as a seller, then you make it the case now. What do I want my exit to look like? How do I want it to look like? And that is going to help you make decisions about what kind of advisors you seek, what kind of buyers you’re looking at. so taking that opportunity now will help you get to that place. I think number two

you know, likely it’s finding, going out and trying to find those advisors to help you to get to those places. There are, you know, and I know folks who are sometimes love to go out and grab, you know, an outside consultant or an investment banker, you know, and, and really talk about how do I get to growth, you know, within my business, but they’ve got great ideas. And, you know, seeking them for their great ideas, seeking them for advice about, you know, how

implement my growth strategy, how I develop a growth strategy is important. And I think it helps companies get to a place where they’re able to actually exit. And they’re not just simply shuttering their business. And then finally, it is in connection with a sale process. It’s ensuring that you have already built around you a team of internal and external advisors who are aligned.

on your ultimate exit strategy. And that alignment piece is key. Not only do you ensure that your folks internally are helping you drive there, but that everyone is getting what they’re looking for out of the transaction and no one is seeking something different. We’re all rolling in the same direction. Awesome. Well, this has been so enlightening and there is so much need in what you just shared with us today.

Definitely will be in touch and we will be have you back on the podcast for the second section. But thank you again for your time today, Manny. You were just outstanding. And I again learned so much just in that short conversation. Well, I really appreciate the opportunity, Gail. It’s my pleasure. I very much look forward to coming back and talking more. All right. Thank you again. Take care, Manny. Take care.