Laura Hildebrandt of Interiors by LH joins Laurie Laizure to share how she built a thriving interior design business in the DC area after a divorce left her a single mom of three with no work history or industry background. Starting with home staging in 2013 using furniture from her own house, Laura taught herself design at night, funded her early business on credit cards, and gradually transitioned into full-service interior design.

The conversation covers Laura's pricing journey from $75/hour to her current rate of $250, with plans to raise it again. Laurie reinforces that no designer should be under $100 an hour and shares a cautionary story about a builder who tried to pay a designer less than minimum wage for full design services on $5 million homes.

Laura walks through her client process: a free 15-minute phone call, a $600 two-hour in-home consultation, and an in-person contract review. She reports a 95% close rate and typically walks out with a signed contract and retainer the same day. Her 15-page contract covers everything from communication expectations to liability protections.

Boundaries are a major theme. Laura does not text clients, keeps firm phone hours (9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.), and gives herself 48 hours to respond to email, all of which are written into her contract. Both Laura and Laurie discuss how women in the industry are often pressured to undervalue their work, whether through lowball builder offers, "carrot opportunities" that never materialize, or clients who try to deduct losses from design fees.

Laura warns designers never to run subcontractors through their business without a GC license and stresses the importance of collecting fees before final installation. The episode closes with a strong message about work-life balance: exhausting yourself does not produce better work, clients will not remember your sacrifices, and the beauty of owning your business is getting to decide how you live your life.

Ann Feldstein, founder of Moxie Marketing and a 25-year veteran of the interior design industry, joins Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson to discuss why women supporting women is one of the most practical business strategies designers can adopt.

Ann's research-backed work on internalized misogyny explores how women unknowingly project societal biases onto each other, from judgment about appearance and life choices to reluctance to share pricing, proposals, and resources with competitors. She traces these patterns to early messaging, fairy tales built on female rivalry, impossible body standards, and a culture that penalizes women for being too direct or too confident.

Laurie shares the example of Shelly Hudson's text group of 15 direct competitors who share everything from pricing to wallpaper installers. The result: stronger systems, higher prices, and better businesses across the board. The takeaway is that transparency between competitors is not a threat. It is a growth strategy.

Ann draws on her experience as a CrossFit coach to illustrate the confidence gap. She consistently told women to add more weight to the bar because they underestimated themselves. Men almost always had to be told to take weight off. That same dynamic plays out in how designers price, present, and advocate for themselves.

Nile adds that everything he learned about business came from women and urges the industry to acknowledge and honor what women bring to the trade. The conversation also examines how men can be better advocates, the AD100 gender imbalance, the "manel" phenomenon, the mental load women carry, and what happens when husbands join successful design businesses and try to restructure what was already working.

Laurie announces plans to write personal recognition letters to 10 designers a month and highlights IDC's 15% profit challenge as a way for designers to strengthen their businesses together. Ann closes with a clear message: every opportunity to elevate another woman in the trade benefits the entire industry.

This episode of To-The-Trade is brought to you by AJ Madison Pro, the industry's trusted appliance resource for interior design professionals. Recorded live on the floor of KBIS 2026, this special episode of To-The-Trade brings together high-end designer Nikki Levy and Jenny York, VP of Marketing for Currey & Company, for a candid conversation about what it actually takes to build lasting designer-brand relationships.

Nikki runs a South Florida firm with 12 employees, 30 active projects, and $50 million in annual specifying dollars. She is direct about what she expects from brands: live people who answer phones, clean returns, MAP pricing that is actually enforced, and reps who function as educators rather than catalog-delivery services. Jenny explains how Currey & Company has built its designer-first reputation over 37 years, including 48-hour shipping, no minimums, no credit card surcharges, and freight calculators available before checkout.

The conversation covers bad rep stories that cost brands six figures in lost business, what designers can do to build goodwill with brands they love, freight billing fragmentation and how to protect yourself, brand storytelling as a client sales tool, and why lighting should never be specced last. For designers looking to strengthen their vendor relationships, and for brands trying to understand what designers actually need, this is a rare conversation where both sides are in the same room and being honest.

PJ Delaye spent 26 years at York Wall Coverings, rising from export director to president of North America's largest wallpaper manufacturer. In this episode of To-The-Trade, he joins Laurie to discuss the wall covering industry's dramatic comeback and why designers should pay close attention.

PJ compares today's wall covering landscape to the craft beer revolution. Digital printing has lowered the barrier to entry, and smaller studios are creating bold, personality-driven patterns that major manufacturers might never have attempted. Coupled with a cultural shift away from minimalism toward maximalist, character-rich interiors, wallpaper is firmly back in the mainstream.

For designers, PJ makes a clear business case. Wall coverings typically offer a 20 to 40 percent designer discount, providing significantly higher margins than paint. They also serve as portfolio builders and referral generators, because a striking wallpaper pattern prompts the "who's your designer" question in a way paint simply can't.

The conversation also covers practical aspects. PJ explains why non-woven backing has become the industry standard for quality wallpaper. Non-woven products are dimensionally stable, allow paste-the-wall installation, enable precise seam matching, and can be removed in full strips. He and Laurie contrast this with peel-and-stick, which helped reintroduce consumers to wallpaper but requires overlapping seams and can split as vinyl shifts with temperature changes.

PJ also introduces his new company, Veer Decor, which curates wallpaper from multiple European mills and studios to offer designers a broad, exclusive portfolio. Laurie concludes with ThinkLab data, estimating the North American wall covering market at nearly $12 billion annually, reinforcing that this is a category designers should not overlook.

Heather Cleveland (Heather Cleveland Design, Bay Area) joins Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson to unpack what truly differentiates a successful design firm: process. While talent is everywhere, Heather argues that a refined, repeatable client experience is what wins trust, reduces anxiety, and drives referrals.

Heather shares her creative upbringing and her career pivot after a tech layoff, then explains how a role running IKEA’s kitchen department became an unexpected technical bootcamp that strengthened her kitchen and bath expertise. From there, she built a whole-home practice while keeping her first love, textiles and materials, at the center of her creativity.

The core of the episode is Heather’s system for “spoon-feeding” clients what they need before they ever have to ask. She outlines a clear sequence of touchpoints from inquiry through onboarding and project milestones, plus personalized gestures that feel thoughtful without resorting to branded swag. Her biggest game-changer is the weekly Friday client email: a consistent update on what happened, what didn’t go right (paired with a solution in progress), and what’s next. That cadence prevents weekend worry spirals and dramatically reduces client check-ins because clients trust the update will come. Laurie connects this to profitability and value communication, noting that proactive communication can prevent the “guilt discounting” cycle many designers fall into.

They also dig into the tough part of every project: ending it well. Heather explains how she sets expectations early by telling clients a story about something that went wrong and how it was resolved, so bumps feel normal rather than catastrophic. At the finish, her firm delivers a detailed project “binder,” now digital, built from Programa, including product specs by room, images to clarify what’s what, and manufacturer care guides. This gives clients confidence they’re not being abandoned after the punch list, and it becomes a valuable asset for resale and future maintenance.

The episode closes with a focus on learning and innovation: Heather prefers workshops (IDS, Haven Workshop) for actionable ROI, and she shares practical AI uses, such as generating presentation cover sketches from a home photo and creating virtual walkthroughs from photorealistic renderings.

In this To-The-Trade episode, Laurie Laizure interviews Phil Hotarek, a plumbing/HVAC contractor and decorative showroom owner in San Francisco who also leads the Decorative Plumbing & Hardware Association (DPHA). Phil explains DPHA’s role in connecting brands, independent reps, and showrooms through a hotel-based showcase that prioritizes time, access, and real conversation, along with education and ongoing resources to better support designers and specifiers.

Laurie highlights DPHA’s roundtable model as a standout: manufacturers, reps, showroom owners, and designers in the same room with a moderator, topics submitted in advance, and a private environment where people can talk honestly about real problems. They reference conversations around tariffs and the shifting economy, and Phil shares that DPHA built this structure by listening closely to annual survey feedback and expanding interactive programming, including webinars, because members wanted more meaningful engagement than passive booth traffic.

The episode turns practical quickly. On pricing volatility, they discuss transparency strategies, including how tariffs might be presented to clients, and Phil emphasizes that surprises erode trust. He encourages a more decisive selection phase when pricing can change rapidly. They also discuss growing pressure on manufacturers to be clearer about where products are truly made versus assembled, because that detail matters for both credibility and storytelling.

On follow-up and relationship-building, Laurie notes designers’ inbox overload and suggests tactics that respect time and bandwidth: QR codes instead of stacks of lookbooks, sensible sampling (often one per firm), and social-media DMs that continue the conversation after the show. They also explore the importance of product stories that help designers explain value to clients and position boutique decorative brands as intentional choices rather than commodities.

Phil closes with a growth goal: reaching 100 designer attendees at the 2026 showcase in Salt Lake City. Laurie shares outreach strategies that could help achieve it.

In this To-The-Trade episode, Laurie Laizure interviews Phil Hotarek, a plumbing/HVAC contractor and decorative showroom owner in San Francisco who also leads the Decorative Plumbing & Hardware Association (DPHA). Phil explains DPHA’s role in connecting brands, independent reps, and showrooms through a hotel-based showcase that prioritizes time, access, and real conversation, along with education and ongoing resources to better support designers and specifiers.

Laurie highlights DPHA’s roundtable model as a standout: manufacturers, reps, showroom owners, and designers in the same room with a moderator, topics submitted in advance, and a private environment where people can talk honestly about real problems. They reference conversations around tariffs and the shifting economy, and Phil shares that DPHA built this structure by listening closely to annual survey feedback and expanding interactive programming, including webinars, because members wanted more meaningful engagement than passive booth traffic.

The episode turns practical quickly. On pricing volatility, they discuss transparency strategies, including how tariffs might be presented to clients, and Phil emphasizes that surprises erode trust. He encourages a more decisive selection phase when pricing can change rapidly. They also discuss growing pressure on manufacturers to be clearer about where products are truly made versus assembled, because that detail matters for both credibility and storytelling.

On follow-up and relationship-building, Laurie notes designers’ inbox overload and suggests tactics that respect time and bandwidth: QR codes instead of stacks of lookbooks, sensible sampling (often one per firm), and social-media DMs that continue the conversation after the show. They also explore the importance of product stories that help designers explain value to clients and position boutique decorative brands as intentional choices rather than commodities.

Phil closes with a growth goal: reaching 100 designer attendees at the 2026 showcase in Salt Lake City. Laurie shares outreach strategies that could help achieve it.

In this To-The-Trade episode, Laurie Laizure interviews Phil Hotarek, a plumbing/HVAC contractor and decorative showroom owner in San Francisco who also leads the Decorative Plumbing & Hardware Association (DPHA). Phil explains DPHA’s role in connecting brands, independent reps, and showrooms through a hotel-based showcase that prioritizes time, access, and real conversation, along with education and ongoing resources to better support designers and specifiers.

Laurie highlights DPHA’s roundtable model as a standout: manufacturers, reps, showroom owners, and designers in the same room with a moderator, topics submitted in advance, and a private environment where people can talk honestly about real problems. They reference conversations around tariffs and the shifting economy, and Phil shares that DPHA built this structure by listening closely to annual survey feedback and expanding interactive programming, including webinars, because members wanted more meaningful engagement than passive booth traffic.

The episode turns practical quickly. On pricing volatility, they discuss transparency strategies, including how tariffs might be presented to clients, and Phil emphasizes that surprises erode trust. He encourages a more decisive selection phase when pricing can change rapidly. They also discuss growing pressure on manufacturers to be clearer about where products are truly made versus assembled, because that detail matters for both credibility and storytelling.

On follow-up and relationship building, Laurie points out designers’ inbox overload and suggests tactics that respect time and bandwidth: QR codes instead of stacks of lookbooks, sensible sampling (often one per firm), and social-media DMs that continue the conversation after the show. They also explore the importance of product stories that help designers explain value to clients and position boutique decorative brands as intentional choices rather than commodities.

Phil closes with a growth goal: reaching 100 designer attendees at the 2026 showcase in Salt Lake City. Laurie shares outreach strategies that could help achieve it.

In this episode, Marsha Sefcik talks with Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson about building a design business that supports the season of life you’re in, rather than forcing yourself into someone else’s “right way.” Marsha shares her journey from corporate sales, training, customer service, and project management to nearly two decades in design, all while raising kids alongside her business. She emphasizes giving yourself grace and modeling problem-solving and professionalism for your family, even when things feel messy.

On the business side, Marsha offers very practical guidance. She recommends starting with a “reverse engineer” approach: clarify the net income you need, then work backward into project minimums, services, and pricing decisions. She also explains why time tracking matters—even if you charge a flat fee or a hybrid—because you can’t accurately audit past projects or identify the “chaos leaks” in your process if you don’t know where the hours are going.

Marsha shares a real project example where a client’s decision bottleneck (tile selection) stalled momentum, tying it back to setting expectations around options, approvals, and limiting revisions. Laurie highlights how quickly revisions can divert a project from its original vision, and why tightening the approval process protects both design integrity and profitability.

They also discuss “shiny object” tech stack creep, with Marsha recommending regular subscription audits and cutting tools you’re not using. From there, the conversation shifts to marketing and pipeline building: relationships matter, newsletters are a missed opportunity for referral-driven designers, and marketing should be viewed as a strategy with ROI, not just random effort. Marsha outlines four marketing pillars: attract, engage, nurture past clients, and delight them.

Finally, they explore boundaries and sales. Marsha redefines upselling as education and service, encourages designers to follow up on proposals, and shares how proactive weekly client updates can reduce frantic weekend texts and keep projects moving smoothly.

Laurie Laizure interviews Boston-based designer Dane Austin about building a design career with intention, focusing on community, and anchoring projects in comfort and quality. Dane shares that he has known he wanted to be an interior designer since childhood, inspired by his grandparents’ stylish, welcoming home. He steadily pursued that path, earning two degrees over 10 years while working in retail, fashion, and hospitality—experiences that shaped both his taste and his client-service mindset.

A key theme is the importance of professional community. Dane shares how he moved from DC to Boston and rebuilt his network by joining organizations, attending events, and volunteering, not just to “get” connections, but to contribute. He advises designers to try groups more than once before deciding they aren’t a good fit, and to focus on one or two organizations at a time to keep involvement manageable.

The episode also examines pricing realities and how fee inconsistency affects the industry. Laurie points out that undercharging can be a significant issue for newer designers who lack mentorship and benchmarks. Dane adds that in more transparent designer communities, established professionals often charge much higher hourly rates, which can be eye-opening for designers still determining their prices.

From there, the conversation shifts to client education about product quality. Laurie and Dane discuss value engineering in mass-market furniture and why marketing-focused brands can signal internal material compromises. They explain the “designer filter,” which narrows down thousands of options to just a few, based on comfort, durability, maker reliability, lead times, and whether pieces can be repaired or reupholstered. Dane’s main principle is that comfort is the ultimate luxury, and he encourages clients to invest in what they touch and use every day, especially custom upholstery and window treatments.

Dane also shares a practical purchasing strategy: build strong relationships with a few trusted showrooms and vendors. Focusing spending enhances support when problems occur and simplifies sourcing. Finally, he redefines what great design provides; it’s not just the final appearance but also the quality of daily life through better lighting, sound, flow, and usability. His process focuses on how clients want to feel in a space, then guides them through decisions as a trusted advisor.