Profit Is A Choice

On the podcast, today is Veronica Solomon of Casa Vilora Interiors out of Katy, Texas. Veronica is a designer, design mentor, blogger, speaker, and micro-influencer. Veronica and I first met on Facebook in her designer group. Then we met in real life at High Point Market in the spring of 2019 where we shared together about building a business and looking for a new hire. Veronica is the real deal. She has a heart to help, and does it in a very straight forward and grace-filled way. In that, she speaks my language. In our conversation today, Veronica shares her journey to profitability – and it is not a straight line, by any means. It is inspirational and actionable. I hope you enjoy the conversation and take away a new idea or even just grace for your own business journey. 

• Failure 
• Growth 
• Consistency 
• Identity 

• I never really thought I wanted to run a business. - Veronica (07:16)

• I remember the first drapery panels I made were $25 because I didn't know how to charge for them. - Michele (09:20)

• And the point of the matter is you can make a good living, no matter which part of the industry or the home owners, whatever demographics you serve. - Michele (15:14)

• I've never looked at my business and thought I'm going to give this up. - Veronica (23:56)

• You don't always know what the big picture is going to be. - Veronica (29:41)

• Obviously, money has to come into play at some point. And we're not doing this because it's just, you know, this hobby of ours, and we just want to do it for free. - Veronica (34:13)

• You know, that teachable spirit is huge. That's a really big deal. - Michele (37:35)

• I think we are in such a time in history of instant gratification, that it can be very easy to let it feed into our mindsets that we tried it, it didn't work, go try something else. It doesn't work. - Michele (41:05)

• I've learned a long time ago that you kind of have to take the good with the bad. - Veronica (50:48)

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: https://www.veronicasolomon.com 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casavilora/ 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/casavilorainteriors  

• 212 Extra Degree by Mac Anderson and Sam Parker

• Atomic Habits by James Clear

• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

Today, I am going to share with you some of the training that I've been offering my private group. I really believe that this is information we should all have. It's also going to be information that you're going to be able to catch in video form in my blog post later this month, and there's a downloadable PDF that will come in the blog post. 

In this process, that we're going to look at today, it’s about creating a transition plan and a restart plan. I am an advocate of doing all the planning in advance as much as we can. So that when it comes time to execute, we already know what to do.  It’s kind of like where you're thinking about what's the worst-case scenario or even a best case scenario. And then when it's time to do it, you just do it. So, with that we are going to be looking at how to create a transition plan. What is a transition plan? Why do you need one?  All of those good details and hopefully it's going to help you not only manage during this time but prepare for what's to come. Stay tuned and enjoy the podcast. 

• AIM with Intent 
• People, process, profit 
• Transition plan 
• Restart plan 

• One of the things we have to think about as part of continuity is what happens during a time that a business is disrupted. And that disruption doesn't always have to be negative. - Michele (03:26)

• I'm telling you to repackage and repurpose some of what you do so you can make money differently, market it differently, change the messaging. - Michele (12:33)

• The more I plan in advance, the safer I feel. - Michele (15:51)

• The goal here is to survive this and then it's to go back to thriving. - Michele (18:50)

• The goal out of this is for you to just open your brain, and to allow yourself to think in a way that is creative and strategic on what can you do to help this business survive until we can pick back up with business as usual. - Michele (19:10)

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

• 30-Minute Strategy Call - Schedule Today

• EP. 035 with Darren Virassamy - Listen Today

• Master Your Profit - Enroll Today

• Understanding Your FInancials - Enroll Today

• Faith and Business - Become a Member Today

• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

• Build a Profitable Business for Interior Designers and Workrooms - Become a Member Today

Welcome to the podcast today.

You know, most of my podcasts are recorded well in advance of when you are going to hear them. Sometimes one or two months in advance and they're normally planned out. Right now we're in a time of very dynamic changes to information. And what's happening can change in a matter of moments. What we start with in the morning may be something different than that we know or are learning about in the afternoon. I want to make certain that I am being dynamic in our podcast with what is happening and not to miss that. And so we're going to be changing up just a little bit. Feel free to take notes and think about how to create a new perspective for your business as you listen to the podcast today.

• Control your thoughts
• Conserve resources
• Know your cash position
• Engage professionals 

• I've been through enough in my life to know that in the midst of difficulty, there is an awesome opportunity and awesome things happening. - Michele (04:06)

• There's innovation happening right now. Hopefully, there are innovative ideas that are being discovered in our own businesses. - Michele (05:52)

• The more that we enjoy saving more than spending, the better off we're going to be. - Michele (09:59)

• Knowing my cash flow is critical to know where to spend, how to spend, how long it's going to last, what decisions I can make, and how to move forward. - Michele (14:58)

• Don't sit back and struggle or downward spiral. - Michele (17:20)

• Caring goes a long way. I think that there are going to be some beautiful gifts that we get out of this Covid-19 - the ability to see each other differently, to care for each other and to understand the symbiotic relationship that we all have. - Michele (19:28)

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
• 30-Minute Strategy Call - Schedule Today
• EP. 058 with Jennifer Smith - Listen Today
• Master Your Profit - Enroll Today
• Understanding Your FInancials - Enroll Today
• Faith and Business - Become a Member Today
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today
• Build a Profitable Business for Interior Designers and Workrooms - Become a Member Today

With us today is Todd Palmer, CEO of Extraordinary Advisors. He is an executive coach, author, and speaker committed to helping business owners tackle their obstacles and clear a path to success. Todd understands struggles, as he will share on the podcast today. He has had it all and lost it all – from a thriving business to $600k in debt – then finding his way out.  

We are going to talk about that journey along with the imposter syndrome, redefining success and failure, managing our mindset and being authentic and vulnerable in our relationships. 

• Imposter syndrome
• Success trap
• Failure
• Work-life integration

• I got custody of my son and I realized that in order to have a sustainable one parent income, I couldn't be all things to all people all the time. I figured out that the best way for me to manage my time and manage my schedule was to go into business for myself. - Todd (04:32)

• I saw this quote from Tony Robbins about five or six years ago, and it shifted everything for me. - Todd (11:21)

• You might fit the mold on Monday, but you might not fit it on Tuesday. And now what are you going to do? - Michele (25:22)

• I mean, I've got a client right now whose business was doing great, but the change of regulations within a governmental code, his business is very vulnerable right now. And he has to pivot away from his bread and butter of 25 years now. - Todd (25:31)

• One of the first things we did start working on was on my mindset because I was incredibly internally self-critical. So that was how imposter syndrome impacted me. - (Todd (29:39)

• I recognize that in the blessings I've received by standing up and leaning into those uncomfortable moments first opens the door for people to share things that they've never maybe shared before in their lives. - Todd (55:31)

• I am a coach and I have a coach, but I need that safe space to unload, and to share and to be vulnerable in a way that I'm understood. - Michele (01:01:56)

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting
• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: https://extraordinaryadvisors.com 
• Instagram: @toddpalmer2 
• Facebook: Extraordinary Advisors 

• Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell
• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

On the podcast, today is Meg Casebolt of Megabolt Digital. Meg focuses on SEO to help her clients have their websites be easily found. What I love about her approach is that it is crafted to allow for the individuality of each client. The term SEO can be so off-putting or something that we don’t really want to think about – but it is necessary in an online world.  

Meg uses Google Analytics as a jump-off point to help her clients much like I use the financial statements when clients come to me. They are just tools that give us insight into how best serve our clients – and in our conversations, we have found other parallels to approaching some of these more difficult topics. 

• Marketing
• SEO
• Google analytics and search console
• Authority

• Thirty years ago when I graduated from college and started working, you didn't hear about business coaches. You certainly didn't hear about SEO because we were not even on the internet at that point. - Michele (08:05)

• I always talk about Profit First-ing our money, but we Profit First our time as well. - Michele (11:00)

• I think when you have at least a foundational understanding of how your marketing can work, and how the different pieces of your marketing can collaborate and build upon each other, then it's easier to hand off without being taken advantage of. - Meg (12:12)

• I think that SEO is an industry people have become so deeply entrenched in it that they just talk in jargon, and it's hard for normal people to understand people talking about SEO. - Meg (15:49)

• I want to be found doing certain things, but I certainly have to use the words and phrases that the ideal clients wanting that product or service would look for. - Michele (20:36)

• So even if you don't do SEO, right now, give yourself the gift of having the analytics so that when you're ready to jump in to understand and to look, you've got the data. - Michele (42:10)

• We're not just looking at quantity. We are also looking at the quality of the behavior of the people coming and being able to segment. - Meg (51:10)

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting
• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: https://megaboltdigital.com 
• Instagram: @megaboltdigital 
• Facebook: Megabolt Digital 

• The Role of Influence In The New Buyer's Journey - Read Today
• Social Traffic Challenge - Join Today
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

Brita DeRemee is joining us on the podcast today. She has over 30-years of experience helping clients create homes they love to live in.  She is their trusted design partner for everything from renovations to custom home furnishings.  Brita is passionate about leveraging art to inspire design and loves the collaborative and layered process.   Her  Swedish roots and modern sensibilities make her a natural advocate for craft and sustainability.  She  embraces the pragmatic and spiritual, the functional and the beautiful. Brita serves a wide variety of busy professionals, art lovers, dog lovers, busy families and empty nesters in Minneapolis, the greater Twin Cities area and beyond.   

Brita and I began working together a little over a year ago and it has been such a pleasure watching her create a business that suits her instead of having to shift who she was to fit into a mold. We will be talking about that process, embracing her superpower of ADHD and how giving herself the freedom to live and work outside of the box has been a joy. 

• Imposter syndrome
• Art
• Process
• Collaboration

• So many people tend to think, well, Michele's just a financial coach. I use your financials to help determine “Are you where you want to be, or are you not where you want to be?” - Michele (03:46)

• There's also something the world tells you, that art is something that's completely separate from the business life…that it has this place that isn't part of the business world. - Brita (06:29)

• I always wanted it to be about creativity, ideas, resourcefulness, definitely buying quality products and knowing how to use them well, but sometimes I could make a difference in somebody's home just by telling them to move something or to recover something as opposed to selling. - Brita (09:26)

• My whole creative spirit really doesn't live very well in systems and processes. - Brita (18:08)

• If you find joy in going in and doing X and Y, then by gosh let's build a business of X and Y. There are people who need that. - Michele (28:50)

• But one thing that you helped me with, is really embracing this idea that you don't give things up for free. - Brita (33:28)

• Then we know that the process we've created is the one that allows us to really focus on and being deliberate on getting the outcome that you and the client both want. - Michele (42:02)

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting
• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: http://www.artistryid.com

• EP. 026 with Peter Shankman - Listen Today
• Faster than Normal by Peter Shankman
• Understanding Your Finances - Enroll Today
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

On the podcast today, I'm going to be sharing with you the focus in my company on scaling your business. If you've listened to a lot of the past podcasts and blogs, you've noticed many of them were on scaling. Scaling simply means growing. And there's more than one way to do that. So my goal is to help the businesses, that I work with, implement business principles early on as quickly as they can, so that they scale with intention and not out of control. I hope you enjoy the podcast today.

• Align Your Team 
• Ignite Your Process 
• Manage Your Money 
• People, process, profits 

• You don't have to have a business degree to be able to make this work. (02:52)

• First, my beliefs about myself changed. I started believing that I could run a business. (6:06)

• My mind was busy all the time trying to solve problems. I had lack of focus, I wasn't eating properly, I wasn't sleeping enough, just trying to spend those plates and my body started giving out. (7:07)

• Do you have the right people on your team? And more importantly, are they in the right positions? (11:31)

• As the business grows, the processes evolve. (16:09)

• We are here to create businesses that are long term sustainable, and our sustainability is a direct result of our gross profit. (25:13)

• But what you do need is a good business understanding and support. You don't need a full degree. (33:23)

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting
• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• EP. 004 with Mike Michalowicz - Listen Today
• EP. 011 with Tracie Taylor - Listen Today
• EP. 050 with Eileen Hahn - Listen Today
• EP. 058 with Jennifer Smith - Listen Today
• EP. 064 with Joel Williams - Listen Today
• EP. 076 with Virginia Toledo and Jessica Geller - Listen Today
• EP. 077 with Brantley Williams and Harrison Williams - Listen Today
• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

On the podcast, today are Jeremy and Chandler Quarles. Together they own Peach and Pine Interiors and host the wonderful podcast, Love Where You Live. After pursuing other careers that were centered around music, they both are now focusing on building the interior and renovation business…with a little music still on the side. We are chatting today about how their business began, how they are integrating their home and business life while focusing on the foundational aspects of business that will put them in a place for future growth. With a one-year-old child and a three-year-old business, you can bet they are busy – and how they support and listen to each other is inspirational. Enjoy the podcast.  

• Integration
• Family
• Podcast
• Faith

• But as the business grew, I realized there was no way for him (Jeremy) to really be involved and help because he was gone so much he wasn't really part of things. - Chandler (8:40)

• And in the past, I would have found other tours and other artists to work for and fill that time but we just kind of said, you know, we created this business with the intention ultimately of coming together on it and it is our career. - Jeremey (11:00)

• You just hear that you don't go into business with friends and family. - Michele (16:19)

• Tag team on Friday. He'll take dad duty in the morning and I'll go work somewhere. Then we'll switch off in the afternoon. - Chandler (24:15)

• Sometimes I'll wake up, honestly, on a Saturday morning, and I won't have any work to do for my clients. But because I've been rested, I want to do something for myself and my own business. - Michele (32:13)

• I mean, I was profitable from the beginning and that my overhead was super low, I was making an income, but I did not have the long term, the long game really in mind. - Chandler (51:06)

• We weren't reckless, we've always been profitable, but we were not sustainably profitable. And I think I wish that we would have just started by taking a small salary and putting more into savings, which is what we're starting to do now. - Jeremy (56:15)

• Yeah, I don't think we certainly were made to be Island. - Michele (59:39)

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting
• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: http://www.peachandpinehome.com 
• Instagram: @peachandpinehome 
• Facebook: Peach and Pine Home 

• EP. 009 with Cory and Anthea Click - Listen Today
• EP. 064 with Michele Williams - Listen Today 
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

On the podcast, today is Stacie Kennedy of Atlanta Custom Interiors. ACI provides custom soft furnishings, upholstery, hard treatments, and dorm bedding to both the retail and trade. Stacie is sharing today in our Business Challenge podcast the question of how to grow two sides of her business at the same time. We talk about the right time to hire, and how to market to keep the new hires busy with steady work. Not something to take lightly. The focus is on timing, opportunity, and marketing.  Enjoy the podcast. 

• Hiring
• Marketing
• Scaling
• Upsell

• The challenge, I guess, and it's been a challenge from the start is just continuing to grow the business and to keep work steady enough to maintain the employees that I have and possibly add another employee. - Stacie (3:43)

• You know, one of the hard parts here is exactly what you said - is forget who to hire. We know who to hire, but it's the when to hire and then the sustaining part. - Michele (8:13)

• The other stuff I do, on social media, it doesn't really cost anything. It's just time. - Stacie (13:22)

• We've quoted a lot of upholstery work, but it hasn't always come in. - Stacie (21:29)

• It could be that they were so shocked by the quote because some people think that reupholstery is going to be cheap. - Michele (24:41)

•  I've never really thought about where I need to market my upholstery. - Stacie (37:26)

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting
• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: https://www.atlcustominteriors.com 
• Instagram: @atlantacustominteriors 
• Facebook: Atlanta Custom Interiors 

• EP. 008 with Richelle Plett - Listen Today
• EP. 024 with Cynthia Bleskachek - Listen Today 
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today

With us today is Jessica Williamson, owner of JTW Design. Jessica graduated from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and then spent the next 10 years working alongside many of the world’s top commercial designers and architects at Gensler in Washington DC. In 2010 she launched JTWdesign where she now offers residential design in the Virginia area. 

Jessica is sharing a business challenge with us today focused on company growth. Her business has been steadily growing and she is feeling pressure to grow more. We unravel some of the feelings and expectations that she is facing so that she can make a plan to move forward and grow in a way that is true and authentic to her and her team – and that results in the best offerings for her clients. 

Enjoy. 

• Growth
• Potential
• Team
• Space

• My biggest challenge is trying to decide how much to grow. - Jessica (3:49)

• It’s not even the level of projects, it is the trust that we’ve garnered with our clients, with the industry. - Jessica (15:31)

• I think there is something to dig into on the fear of being left behind. - Michele (16:00)

• So maybe the growth is not to take on more work, but to take on more of the better work and less of the non-aligned work that maybe was aligned in the last one to two years but is not now. - Michele (17:43)

• I don't know how to change and grow the day to day to be able to work less, and keep that level of output. - Jessica (37:14)

• It seems tedious, but it will free you up in the biggest way. - Michele (41:05)

• I am reI'm really trying hard not to reinvent the wheel and not to touch something multiple times that doesn't need to be touched. - Jessica (44:11)

• I would not go hire more people to throw at a problem that you don't have a system created for. - Michele (48:50)

• I can help you get there, but identify why you want it. - Michele (1:04:05)

• I’ve always loved mentoring. And that's why I love working with my team as much as I do. - Jessica (1:04:19)

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting
• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: www.jtwdesign.co  
• Instagram: @jtwdesignllc  
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jtwdesign/  

• Discover Your 34 - Take Assessment Today!
• EP. 035 with Darren Virassammy - Listen Today
• The Designers' Inner Circle - Become a Member Today