Ever wish you had more time in your day? You can’t add more minutes, but you can make more efficient use of the time you do have. A good place to start is by establishing or reviewing the three P’s: policies, processes and procedures. They’re the foundation of a well-run business.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin share their insights on the importance of establishing policies, processes and procedures for your business. When you put in place the right systems and codify best practices, you and every member of your team can work more efficiently, putting their creative effort and energy into achieving goals rather than thinking up new ways for how to do their jobs.

“You want to be running your company like an efficient machine,” said Gail. Once those systems are in place, you can spend less time managing tasks and people and have more time to work on the things that increase your revenue.

The same goes for how you use your own time. Developing useful rituals and good habits, such as a productive and healthy morning routine, will save you time, make your life easier, and make it easier for others around you to know what to expect of you. On the other hand, some unproductive rituals or bad habits may be holding you back. You want to replace those with positive ones.

Policies set down how you want your firm to operate and embody the firm culture you want to create. For example, what is your policy for how a client complaint gets handled? Without policies, everyone is doing things their own way—and not necessarily in a way that reflects well on your firm.

A process encompasses a series of actions and tasks. For instance, what is your firm’s client experience process, from the time a prospect makes contact through to landing a project, delivering on the project, closing out the project, and soliciting a referral?

A procedure is a step-by-step description and rationale for how a particular task gets done. You might have a procedure for posting content to your social media channels. Having clear procedures allows you to delegate tasks to others with confidence that they will be done correctly.

Make sure policies, processes and procedures are communicated clearly. Once in place, you need to instill a culture of discipline to ensure everyone follows them.

At the end of their conversation, Gail and Erin talked about ways to break out of the day-to-day minutiae of dealing with the latest crisis or deadline in order to refocus on what’s most important to move your business toward accomplishing the vision and goals. For those insights and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://gaildoby.com/s6e1-shownotes

Erin referred to the book The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed To Transform Your Life by Hal Elrod. You can learn more about it and his other Morning Routine materials at his website at halelrod.com.

As businesses grow and change, employees’ roles need to change as well. Making that transition from a former role to a new one, with different responsibilities and new relationships with the rest of the team, can be difficult, for the individual and for the team. Leaders have a key part to play in making those transitions successful.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin talk about how they are dealing with some transitions taking place within their own company. Their conversation wandered into some insightful side trips along the way.

Erin shared that during some leadership team planning and strategizing sessions earlier this year, she realized that, given the plans emerging for growing the business, she needed to change her role in the company. That got her thinking about where she needed to focus in order to really help the business as it entered this next phase.

Reflecting on what that role might be, Erin came to see she would have to switch from being someone who wore a lot of different hats to someone who put more of her effort into concentrating on fewer areas of responsibility. And that meant (1) she would have to adjust to a new set of priorities and a different way of interacting with the rest of the team, and (2) other members of the team would have to assume some of the roles and responsibilities she was giving up, which meant they were going to go through a transition as well.

Gail observed that as your business grows, employees’ contributions will become less task-specific; each employee will become less of a generalist and more of a specialist. Erin added that in instigating those transitions it’s important to focus on people’s gifts and talents to find the right place for them in the company.

During those times of transition, leaders have to think ahead and make a plan before initiating such a transition, not only because of all the dislocations and rearrangements that will take place, but also because such changes evoke a lot of emotions that will need to be worked through.

They should be thinking about what each team member needs to be successful in a new role and what the rest of the team needs in order to be able to take on new responsibilities from the other team member whose role has changed.

Erin said she had come to realize that while transitions can be hard, the thing that makes them easier is to talk about them. Gail added that leaders need to watch for and have conversations with team members about what makes them happy about their job and about what they don’t like about their job to gauge how they can best contribute to the company.

In closing, Gail cited three takeaways she noted down during their conversation

To find out how Gail goes about identifying the “superpower” in each of her employees, what it means to show up with your cup full and why it matters, and Erin’s big insight into how having the proper communication channels can make all the difference to how smoothly your business runs, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://gaildoby.com/s5e10-shownotes

Much has changed in the interior design industry in the past decade, often to the benefit of designers. Along with the recognition that designers are best equipped to enhance the lives and ensure the health, safety and wellness of clients has come the acknowledgment of designers’ collective buying power and their influence on which products and materials end up in people’s homes. That has led some manufacturers to actively reach out to designers and seek greater collaboration on how they can better serve each other.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin talk with Lee Hershberg, CEO of DesignEdge, which operates an online multimedia marketing platform developed to close the gap between design-oriented makers and manufacturers and the professional designers they serve. DesignEdge also presents invite-only, trade-only events in major cities around the country, featuring the best home furnishing and kitchen and bath brands in North America, that bring together professional designers and top-manufacturer executives to share ideas and feedback.

Gail asked Lee about the benefits of attending a DesignEdge event. “Imagine having presidents and senior executives from leading brands you know, and even from some you don’t know, sitting in your living room, having a conversation with you,” replied Lee. That is the kind of intimacy and one-on-one attention they strive to achieve at DesignEdge.

Lee described the one-and-three-quarters-day event as “product representative of each brand, not product heavy,” so as not to overwhelm designers and to allow more time for engagement between designers and manufacturers.  In addition, the events include educational programming and activities that support and celebrate the regional design culture and community.

Gail also asked Lee for any insight he could provide on the problem many designers are having with freight damage. Lee said that, unfortunately, it was one of the side-effects of the “industry pandemic” everyone is dealing with due to COVID-related shutdowns, backlogs and supply chain issues.  He urged designers to communicate with manufacturers about the problems they’re experiencing but said that they’re likely to persist until backlogs start to clear out.

At the end of their conversation, Lee offered three pieces of advice for designers:

Along the way, Lee shared some personal insights as well. To find out why Daring Greatly tops his list of books he’s ready lately, who he would take with him if he were stranded on a desert island, and where he hopes he and DesignEdge will be in 10 years, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://gaildoby.com/s5e9-shownotes

For more information about Lee Hershberg, DesignEdge, and upcoming events go to the website at www.designedgeco.com

To learn more about Pearl Collective and our interior designing business coaching services, read more about our programs.

“Take time away from my business? If only I could!!” That’s a typical response from many small business owners when asked about taking a vacation. But it’s not a good one—not for you nor for your business. Having a fuller, freer life benefits your mind, body and soul. And when you step away from your business for a while, you strengthen your team and your business will thrive.

In this podcast, Gail talks with Mike Michalowicz, entrepreneur, speaker and author of several bestselling books to help other entrepreneurs and their businesses thrive. He recently published a revised and expanded version of his popular book, Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself. His other titles include Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Surge, and Fix This Next.

Mike explained that as a budding entrepreneur he was seeking independence and an opportunity to gain the money he felt he deserved. What he experienced was the opposite; what has he come to call “entrepreneurial poverty.” This consists of a lack of time to do other things than work on the business, daily anxiety about revenues and cash flows, and the loss of a sense of meaningful achievement.

Determined to find a better way, Mike made it his motto to “eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.” Each of his books focuses on some area of entrepreneurial poverty he has learned to overcome. Clockwork, for instance, is about achieving time freedom. To do that, you need to groom your team to be able to run the business without you. Then, when they’re ready, take an extended vacation—four weeks or more—and see how they do. You’ll not only discover you can be away more often than you think, but you’ll also discover areas in the business that need shoring up that you might not have noticed if you’d been involved in the business day after day.

Business owners have trouble letting go because their ego is invested in believing the business can’t run well without them, but also because they’re focused on the wrong role. “Business owners should not think of themselves as superheroes who can solve every problem,” said Mike, “but as super-visionaries who have a vision of the future of the business and who choreographs all the resources around that.”

“The number one job an entrepreneur has is to be a creator of jobs,” Mike said. The more jobs the owner can get rid of for themselves, the more they are empowering the other members of their team. You need to develop a delegation mindset.

In a jam-packed conversation, Mike touched on a number of other important topics, including knowing the difference between growing and scaling a business, focusing on improving organizational efficiency instead of increasing productivity, and why fear is a major motivator for change.

If you’d like to know how to avoid the survival trap, what’s involved in conducting a “crush or cringe” analysis of your clients, and the “4D Mix” every CEO should seek to achieve, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes on our website: https://gaildoby.com/s5e8-shownotes

For more information about Mike and his books, visit his website at mikemichalowicz.com

Mike’s most recent book, Clockwork, Revised and Expanded: Design Your Business to Run Itself, will be released August 23, 2022 and will be available in hardcover and e-book formats.  You can pre-order a copy now.

When you think of leaders you admire, those who really make a difference, what traits stand out for you? Probably not being dictatorial, single-minded, disdainful or aloof. We want our leaders to be strong, but wherein does the real strength of leadership lie?

In this podcast, Gail along with members of her Boardroom Group glean some insights into how to become a more effective leader courtesy of Tim Fulkerson, executive coach and member of the Leadership Coach Group. Tim has coached hundreds of clients from around the world, from senior managers to senior executives in a wide range of industries and companies, large and small.

Tim began his presentation by sharing some research showing that among all types of companies leadership is the only single differentiator between organizations for how well they perform. In short, said Tim, “We know that leadership matters.”

If leadership is key to a firm’s success, how can we become more effective leaders? Not by carrying a big stick. Rather, said Tim, by tuning into the culture and creating connections with your team before you turn them loose to do the work. Effective leaders don’t direct their people, they motivate and support them and give them the freedom to do their best work.

Tim cited five “creative competencies” leaders need to be effective: relating, self-awareness, authenticity, systems awareness, and achieving.

“Leadership effectiveness is mediated by the gap between self and circumstance,” said Tim. When problems or challenges arise that are outside our current competencies because of their complexity or uncertainty, we have the choice either to react negatively and try to muddle our way through, or to engage with the situation and accept it as an opportunity to learn and expand our competencies. Effective leaders are those who respond to challenges by getting curious, by getting creative, and by acknowledging the challenge to their team and asking for their input and ideas.

Tim touched on a number of other topics, such as the role of emotions in leadership, the courage to be seen as vulnerable, and the five essential responsibilities that all leaders have to their firms and their teams. For these insights and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes on our website: https://gaildoby.com/s5e7-shownotes

For more information about Tim and his colleagues, visit the website for the Leadership Coach Group.

Tim mentioned The Leadership Circle and its co-founders, Bill Adams and Bob Anderson, which specializes in leadership development.

Gail referred to the book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith.  You can learn more about it on Marshall’s website.

Tim discussed the Cynefin (pronounced ‘ku-nev-in’) framework, developed by Dave Snowden, a renowned authority on chaos theory and managing complexity. You’ll find a helpful explanation, with charts and graphs, at www.modelthinkers.com/mental-model/cynefin-framework, or a number of other websites pertaining to business management and decision-making models.

Tim spoke of the acronym VUCA, which stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity, which derives from the leadership theories of Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus.  There is a helpful article from Forbes magazine that explains what it means and why it matters to business.

Many interior designers aspire to provide their services to highly affluent clients. But do you know who they are and how to find them? More importantly, perhaps, do you know what they want to know about you? The answer may surprise you.

In this podcast, Gail talks with Chris Ramey, president and co-founder of Affluent Insights, considered one of the leading experts on best practices to serve the affluent. Chris is also president of The Home Trust, which assists the affluent in finding extraordinary design services and products for their home. Chris is also much sought-after as a keynote speaker.

Chris spoke at length about how luxury as a business model differs from design as a business model. Designers who want to attract and attain highly affluent clients need to understand the difference and adjust their marketing and branding accordingly. They should think in terms of targeting the top one percent, the households with the highest incomes, those with a net worth of $6 million or more.

“You don’t sell to the highly affluent,” said Chris, “you fascinate and enchant them.” Match their values. Be a connoisseur who does things and sees things they don’t, but want to know or experience. Don’t emphasize your experience; that’s a given. Instead, show them the kind of atmosphere you can create for them in their home to help them live abundantly.

Chris spoke about what he calls the 7 Pillars of Luxury and how they connect to the expectations of the highly affluent. Never forget that they are hiring you to perform a service, so let them know how you will serve them, not how you design. In particular, he added, highly affluent clients are looking for the promise of sophistication, the promise of privacy and discretion, and someone who “gets” them.

How you brand yourself is very important. “Why don’t high affluents who visit your website not follow through and call you?” he asked. It’s because they don’t see themselves on your website or do see something that says to them you are not what they’re looking for. You need to manage your imagery so it creates a feeling of fascination and enchantment. Pick words that are important to them and let them know you understand who they are.

For more details about these and the many other topics Chris discussed with Gail, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes on our website: https://gaildoby.com/s5e6-shownotes

For more information about Chris and the services he offers, visit his website at affluentinsights.com.

To see the partners Chris works with and the products he features, go to the website for The Home Trust.

Chris mentioned a couple of network organizations that can be useful in making contact with high affluents:

Chris recommended the book, The Global Code: How a New Culture of Universal Values Is Reshaping Business and Marketing by Clotaire Raipaille. It is available from online booksellers.

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re talking but nobody’s listening? You’re not alone. It happens all the time to all of us. It takes two to communicate. With some effort and finesse, we can improve the odds that others will pay attention to what we’re saying.

In this podcast Gail talks with communications expert Paul Hellman, consultant, columnist and author of several books, including You’ve Got 8 Seconds: Communications Secrets for a Distracted World. Through his firm, Express Potential, Paul also offers his services as a keynote speaker and facilitator of workshops on various communications topics.

Paul explained that the title of his book derives from some research conducted by Microsoft that found humans today on average have an attention span of about 8 seconds. One reason is that we have so many distractions from all the devices we use and all the information we’re constantly bombarded with. Another reason is that we’re continuously engaged with our own internal thoughts—by one estimate, as many as 60,000 a day—even when listening to others.

Think of it, said Paul, “when you talk to somebody, you are speaking into a listener cluttered with 60,000 thoughts.”

So how does one break through the clutter? asked Gail. Paul said there are three main strategies: focus, variety and presence. Each is a way to get the listener’s attention and hold it.

Paul went on to say that every audience, no matter who or how many they are, when listening to someone always is looking for the answer to three main questions:

Most people, Paul added, contribute to the clutter by providing too much detail or by taking too long to get to the point. To be effective in communicating, say less. Be concise. Design a message that will stick. Answer the three questions as efficiently, directly and clearly as you can.

Paul went on to give some advice on how to create effective emails that others will open and read, how to give negative feedback in a way that the listener will hear and accept it, and how to ask smart questions that engage the listener and invite dialogue. For those and other insights into how to become a more effective communicator, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes on our website: https://gaildoby.com/s5e5-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Paul, his books, his workshops and other services, visit the website for his firm, Express Potential.

To date, Paul has published three books:

You can get more information about them on the Books page of the Express Potential website at expresspotential.com/books.