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.

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Episode Transcript

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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.