Uncomplicating your Interior Design Business

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Transcript

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Welcome to Designing Success from Study to Studio. I'm your host, Rhiannon Lee, founder of the Oleander Finch Design Studio. I've lived the transformation from study to studio and then stripped it bare and wrote down the framework so you don't have to overthink it. In this podcast, you could expect real talk with industry friends, community, connection, and actionable tips to help you conquer whatever's holding you back. Now let's get designing your own success. Before I get stuck into today's episode, I have a little favor to ask you. If this particular episode sounds clearer to you or better to you, or you prefer the sound quality in this episode, could you please pop into my DMs on Instagram over at oleander underscore and underscore finch and let me know. I have two professional recording studio microphones here in the oleander and finch studio. One is the Blue Yeti for anyone looking to start a podcast. That's a really easy one. It's always plugged in for my zoom calls, but I have been getting some feedback lately that it's been a little bit patchy. So in a effort to rectify that I've dragged out the Focusrite system that I have, which is another professional recording system using the Scarlett studio mic, which I actually prefer. But the difference is it doesn't block out the background noise. So we've just had a big storm come through and then the cockatoos came through and whilst I'm sure that's lovely for our non Australian listeners, I have had to re record this intro. So if you have noticed a difference or if this is the one that you prefer, come and let me know so I know because it makes no difference to me which mic I use. I am trying to avoid any feedback that it's been a bit cloudy or the sound quality hasn't been amazing. So I very much appreciate your input. With all this newfound sound quality, you may also hear that I'm a little bit nasally as I was gifted a head cold from my children for the Easter long weekend. Which is fine. I'm on the other side of that. I'll be back in the studio next week. I've got some exciting things that I'm planning and pulling together, but one of those things is just some extended resources for the framework is so I have an entire section inside of the resource library that is around ebooks and education and, webinars and what else do we put in there? There are checklists, just things that you might Need or things that I learn along the way, because there is an evolution of learning in the framework. I haven't just set it up and then walked away. If I implement something new in my business, or if I am aware of a change as I gather better prompts for AI, or I have a Canva hack that I learn about, I always include it in this bonus section of learning. It's not something you have to do to feel like you've framework and you feel really secure in your business, but at any time, because you do get lifetime access to the resource library. If at any time you want to level up, you have this huge section and library of masterclasses and guest experts, zoom calls, and all these things that you can watch. It's a lot. It's very overwhelming when you first log in, but it's not actually things that you must do. get your business off the ground. It is things that you can do to improve the business that you have gotten off the ground. It's a particularly great resource section for people that join the framework. Cause I have frameworkers who have 20 years experience, 10 years experience, six years experience in interior design industry. So for some of them, That is like the place where they hang out all the time. They're always in there and being like, Oh, that was a great template. Or I didn't have a PDF for my clients around why I pass on my trade discounts in this method, or I didn't have this template and I've now completed it. Cause it's all sitting in there. So it's one of my favorite hub spots inside of there. the resource library. And hopefully if you ever join the framework, it will be one of yours as well. But the new resource that I was creating for people was basically like a health check or a triage system for what might be happening in your business right now if you're not finding it easy. If there's no flow, if your business just feels oh my God, where's the next client coming from? Things feel really hard at the moment. The algorithm hates me. Everything I do is suppressed. Mark Zuckerberg owns my life. Joke. Paul Zuckerberg gets a bad rap on this. Podcast, but it is not all his fault. Good content always performs and there are certain things that we can do. So today's episode is absolutely solution focused, as is my 100 percent motto. I am all about forward momentum and progress over perfection. So today I've picked out, seven or eight of this master list that I created of reasons things might be hard. And then some tips. solution or actionable ways that you can combat that in order to improve it and get it feeling easy and getting the whole thing in flow again. Okay. Firstly, your marketing is still about you and it isn't speaking to your ideal client. This one is very common in the first couple of years. It's really hard to get that marketing messaging right. That stops being about what I can deliver to you, what I do, what I'm good at, and becomes more about your problems. How you want to feel in your space and how the service that I provide solves that problem and is the solution to You know the before you that has this problem versus after you work with me how you feel. Have you ever noticed how? great marketing Always paints a picture it's storytelling like some of the best things the ones that make you stop and save that for later Or you're like, oh, I wish I could write like that. It's always marketing. That is giving you a real Feeling an emotion. It's emotive language. It's painting that picture. Like I said, it's talking about the frustrations. Are you starving for storage in your family home, obviously, a lot of people listening to this podcast, so unlike my marketing workshop where we go in and we create messaging for people's individual ideal clients, this one just has to be a bit of a blanket. But if it is something like you create spaces for families, you'll be fine. honing in on all of those frustrations. Moms maybe don't have time. You're scrolling Pinterest all the time late at night, but you don't know how things are going to look when you put them together. You only have a set tricky space and you just don't know what's the best floor plan, or you don't want to invest a lot of money because your kids are still in the blueberry squishing into ivory carpet kind of phase. Being able to sit down and write. those pain points down or frustrations. What is my potential client, my ideal client feeling right now? What's annoying them? How can I help them with that problem? And what do I do that is different to them just DIYing or finding a solution on Pinterest, finding a room that's already been designed and really thinking about that. Because then when you can train them and talk to them about the DIY. difference that you can make to their life. People are so much more. How do I work with you? Where do I send the check? Ultimately, what you want to have is marketing that puts your potential client in the shoes or perspective of who you're talking to. So they're like, Oh my God, that's me. Oh, yes. I feel you. Hashtag relatable. This is all the things that I'm going through. Take me to the next step of the journey and then take me to the next part where I find the contact us page and then let's get on a discovery call. So you are effectively just giving them that first indication, waving your arms in the air. Hello, I'm over here. I'm for you. I am the solution to your terrible problems. And you don't have to be intimidated about getting this right straight away. Marketing is a journey. The marketing you do in the first six months of your business is so chunky compared to how targeted and great you get when you've still got the same ideal client, but you're six years into your business. But, The best time to start is yesterday. And if you didn't start yesterday, start today. Just get a piece of paper, write down what is my client currently feeling? What's frustrating them? What are their problems? What do I do a bit differently to the person, other people I know that are in the industry? And how do I specifically solve that problem? Do I do anything fun or different? Is my methodology different? Is there something they can expect from working with my brand that they won't receive if they work with a different brand. And just try to pull out a bunch of things that you can talk about. Keeping in mind, however, that our problem that I'm currently talking to is you is the eye focused marketing issue where your marketing is too focused on you and not enough on your clients. So try to set yourself a challenge for the next seven days. Every caption and every post that I do is going to be about them and how they will feel and what they will receive and what they are frustrated with and what they're going through and how hashtag likes. Follows, shares, saves and shares are a great way for you to go. Huh. Yep. I'm cutting through here because my ideal client has saved this for later because it's helpful. It's exactly what they need for their problem. Or they've shared it with a friend cause they're like, yes, this is me. I know I'm getting this right when my ideal client tags another ideal client. So in my world, my ideal client is obviously creative service based businesses or interior designers looking to scale or start an interior design business. So when I do a post about the framework that is about the issues that they're having, and I see one tag, someone else who's just graduated or who's a couple of years in or who needs whatever they need, The topic of that carousel is, I know my job is done well. Okay, let's get into the next one. Your packages are confusing. When we first set our services and offers, there is always an inclination, especially for new designers, to overdo it. overcomplicate this. The packages are tiered. They've got tiers inside of tiers. There's add on whistles. There's the flow chart or the map of what you get and how you do things is just so much more complicated than it needs to be. And when it is confusing to your client, they give up. If they can't work with you and they can't understand what they have to do and what is needed to pay a deposit and get moving, it's all too complicated. This is the single reason that around the third month of my business, I scrapped client questionnaires and I don't do them in my business. I don't teach you to do them when I work with you. I personally just don't rate them. My clients hated doing them. I was constantly chasing them up. Just before our kickoff call next week, have you finished that questionnaire or, I haven't actually seen any Pinterest inspo come through and the 50 questions that I asked you, my clients hated printing it, filling it out, scanning it, returning it no matter what format I sent it in, it wasn't getting done, it was stressful for everyone, and I just went, you know what, There is an easier way. We're getting on a Zoom call anyway. I'm gonna ask all these questions and that's gonna make me really connected to the answers because I'm there listening. I understand what you're trying to explain to me. I can ask a secondary question because sometimes even when I was getting these questionnaires, it was like, do you prefer linen or velvet? And they'd say linen and then we'd get into a call where I was talking about the brief and they're like I hate linen and I'd be like, oh, sorry, I saw on the questionnaire and they were like you only gave me two choices. And I hate velvet. So I went with linen. So we need to be really careful. I identified, especially in my business that it wasn't working for me. It wasn't serving me. It was overly complicated. And so I ditched it. As soon as I ditched it, I became more confident in the process when I was on discovery calls, and I just found it easy to be like, yep, no problems. No, you don't need to fill anything out. Once the deposit is received, I'll send you out a welcome pack. I'll let you know next steps and frequently asked questions. And then we will just gather some inspiration between now and kick off. I just, it just rolled. It felt better. It was easier. So I would ask you to ask yourself, honestly, are you overcomplicating this? Are your packages confusing? Or do your clients go, yep, no, got it. There's, a gold, silver and premium package. And I understand them completely. I'm not in any way suggesting that's what you should have. I'm just saying sometimes when the message is really overcomplicated, clients just give up and walk away. So if you're finding things are hard and they don't feel easy, I'm Go all the way back to the start, look at your services that you offer and what's included and what your client needs to do to book them and to get moving. And that's a great start to audit, to think, could this be easier? Could I cut any of this? Can I make this easier? process more lean? Is there fat on this that doesn't need to be there? Is there things that are slowing me down so that I'm, the ultimate outcome is that this becomes really streamlined and we get you a system that's easy to implement, easy to remember, easy to explain to your clients, and doesn't have all these steps like questionnaires and other things that you just really are double handling and don't need because that's when things get messy. Okay, this third one is really common, and it is that you don't truly believe in the value that you provide. So when we're on a discovery call, or we speaking with a client, or just having any interaction, even the in home consultation, if you don't truly believe that you are capable of giving them the greatest outcome, that you are invested in working so hard to provide for them, a beautiful home that hits the brief, that has everything that they need fixed and beautiful and refurbed. all those words, big reveal. If you don't think you can deliver that, it's really obvious. And if you have huge imposter syndrome and doubt around what you can do in general, it comes through a lot in the way that you speak about your business, in the way that you project what you can do, in everything that you do with potential clients feels a little bit trepidatious and nervous. I mentioned imposter syndrome there and I want to be very careful because everyone might be like, Oh, actually I do have that. So maybe I'm not doing things right. This is not a podcast all about what you're doing is terrible and what you're doing is wrong. It's really supposed to be solution focused and I want to acknowledge that all creators feel imposter syndrome. I will feel it. The people I admire feel it. The people they admire feel it. It is just a very natural thing. I think we've done some stuff in the past on imposter syndrome in the podcast, but just so you know, that's not a reason to be like, Oh I obviously don't believe in the value that I provide. They're different. So what I'm talking about is understanding exactly what you bring to the table and why that person should then pay a deposit and get working with you. So if you can't list off five great reasons to work with you right now, my suggestion is to get a piece of paper again and write down a column that's billable value and non billable value. And the reason that I say that is because billable value will be the things that you can actually charge for. So things like being able to create a mood board, make FF and E selections, all that sort of stuff. And non billable value will be, I bring a 15 years corporate experience to the table with a focus on product innovation and marketing. I bring all the leadership conferences that I've been to all the all the external training and upskill stuff that I've done, the actual studying of interior design, which allows me to work in a professional capacity. All the hours of reading magazines that I do to keep on top of what's happening in the interior. Like I'm sure that I'm on the Architectural Digest website way more than my client. So that would be in the non billable value, but it's still value. I'm bringing all of this to the job. every job that I do, understanding the fabrics, doing all this stuff. So you could list out so many things and I think it's a really great activity to do when you're feeling that imposter syndrome and that, just that ick that you sometimes get where you're like, Oh, is this even a thing? What am I doing? What am I doing it for? You just have down days in your business and that's a really great time to list out your accomplishments. Gather positive client feedback, think about the unique skills and the transferable skills that you bring from your past career. Remind yourself of the value that you put into upscaling yourself all of the time in order to deliver the best outcomes for your clients. Okay, another place that you can affect change in your business if things feel hard could be in your pricing. So if your pricing is too low and your conversion rate is really high, like everyone you get on the phone says, Yep, absolutely. We want to go ahead. That indicates you have a pricing problem. You should be comfortable with getting no's in your business. You should be sitting at a conversion rate. That is well under 80%. If you're above 80%, it means your pricing is too low. Everybody's saying yes, and they're not all saying yes, because they just cannot believe their luck that you have availability and that you can work together. So pricing is a great place that we can go, okay. What would it look like if I raised my pricing and worked with less clients, but the clients I did work with were able to receive all of me, I didn't feel as strained the client experience would just get better and better. I have a little bit more time to work on my business and upskilling some of the areas that I've identified that I need a bit of help with. Like we all need help. That's. A key thing to becoming a six and seven figure business owner is identifying that you always want to constantly learn, improve, and that you have blind spots, and that you are not good at everything. You can't be good at all the things. There's absolutely places where you're like, Ooh, yep, they definitely do that better. Or I want to go learn this from someone who's really nailing it. So in terms of pricing, Ask yourself, honestly, do I know enough about my pricing? Okay. Cause you might be listening to this and you might be quite new in the industry. In which case, if you've had less than 15 clients ever in your business, you're probably not in a place to make really great pricing decisions on your own. You're definitely going to need coaching, a set of eyes, an experienced set of eyes that knows what everyone else in the industry is doing. Or someone who's been in business long enough to say, okay, but Could that look better? What if you stripped out these three inclusions and they still got this great thing, but it took you half the amount of time and you could charge an extra 20 percent for that? Or what about if we stripped this out and this became an additional paid service? So you no longer resented doing 3D renders, for example, people would just have to pay to add them on. And then you would do a lot less of them. I'm just using random examples. Another one that I use in e design is new e designers will always say, yeah, no problem. I'll take a look at that and design like what should go on the built in shelving. Nope. That is really arduous, really time consuming, really difficult because you need to know the depth and height between all the shelves, and it's very finicky. You've got to shop from, it's this huge selections procurement list in the end from all these little stores, and it takes so much time. 10 times the amount of one mood board and people like yeah, I'll take a look at that for you. That needs to be a paid service. I do styling and shelf styling or shelf plans separately. They start from 6. 95. Do you still want me to have a look at that? little things that I sometimes help people within coaching around just thinking about their pricing in a different way. Last week in my Friday framework email that I send out, if you're on my subscription list, you will every Friday get something actionable and helpful to put into your business. If you're not on that subscription list, just head over to my website or Instagram, and you can sign up in the bio or with the pop up and get on that list. So you do get those frameworks. They're actually not ones that I generally have on the podcast or on Instagram. I make content specifically for the email subscription list. So if you love the content and you think it's helpful, please go and join. But in the meantime, that Friday framework was all around an actual conversation and an analogy that I gave a private coaching client this week and how we doubled her pricing in that conversation right then and there. We added like, we probably tripled her initial in home consult to be fair because underpriced. She wasn't charging travel fees. So we added those as an additional and just right. We stripped it back and went right into every little possible scenario. And then I found places where she could increase her revenue and not build resentment in her business. So what happens when we don't charge correctly is we end up resenting the job because we feel like we're not being valued. But I get really annoyed at this. And I say this all the time inside of the framework, because you have not given your client the opportunity to pay full price or price that values your worth. When you undercharge them in the invoice, that's all you actually ask them to pay. And then you're annoyed at them later in the process when they're still asking questions and you only made 1, 000 for a six month, 12 month job. That's on you. That's not them. That's you not knowing that you could have asked for 10, 000 and then you'd be very happy to answer their questions. So if you're finding this pricing stuff feels hard, there's a chance that you're not pricing correctly and that it is absolutely worth your time to go and do a individual one on one mentor session, a skill session, a pricing webinar. Go and find the skill that you need to get the confidence to ask for more money. And to feel like this stuff could be easier and it gets easier. Ask for what you're worth and you will be so much happier in your business in the short run and the long run. Okay, the next one is that you are wobbly in the sales process and that's okay. It takes time to get to know over and over. What your processes are, what is the important information that your client actually wants when they're on that discovery call with you like having done hundreds and hundreds over the years, you get so much better at them. But at the beginning, I was terrified. I remember being like so then, Okay. Yep. You, I can send you an invoice and then if you're okay with it, if we could go forward, like you could just let me know if you're not okay with it. That's okay. We don't have to, oh my God, it was just a train wreck. And now I have a really well oiled system. I'm very confident in the value billable and non billable 150% over deliver what I'm promising to do within all of the services that I am doing. And so it's much easier for me. So the way that we combat this or the solution to being wobbly in the sales process is, develop a script practice these, write down all the key things that you need to communicate to the client in that sales call, write yourself a sticky note in your sales call. Office that says ask for the sale. You don't have to do the follow up and all the other processes if you just ask right then and there. How does that sound? Are you ready to go ahead? Did you want me to hold tentatively a date for you? I can hold you in the calendar for the next 48 hours, but you will need to make a decision because I do have others that have projects with similar timelines or kick off dates. I have a list of how to ask for the sale things on the resource hub in on my website. So head over to www. oleanderandfinch. com. There is a Banner there that says resources for interior designers go on there. And there's a whole thing for like how to ask for the sale. There's all sorts of stuff that you guys can do to help yourself upscale in this area, but practicing on real life, potential clients would not be my recommendation. Because they can hear you when you're not confident, when you're wobbly, when you don't believe in the value you bring. All of the stuff that I'm talking about today should just be done for the fun of it, and for the love of it, and for making your business better. For taking a minute to sit down and write all the value that you bring, for taking a minute and thinking about your pricing, and then for practicing. Asking for the sale. Practicing assuming the sale. Why wouldn't they want to go ahead with you? They've called you. They need help. Their spaces need help. We are not door to door knocking and selling vacuum cleaners here, people. This is a luxury service and your pricing should echo that and your belief in what you do should echo that and you should absolutely be like, look, If you've got the time and you have the inclination to have a better outcome in your design project, I have the skill, let's do this. Why wouldn't we? Okay, that leads me into the next one that can be making things feel hard. You don't have a proper follow up process, or if you do have that process, you're not activating it. You're not actually getting on calls with people, sending out investment guides, following up that investment guide, getting back on the phone with people. How did you go? Did you have a conversation with your partner? Where are you at? I was only holding that place for 48 hours. That's coming to an end. Are you ready to go ahead? What were your thoughts on our previous conversation? Did you have other questions I can help you with? I see so many people in this sales process, like somebody asks for what you do and how you can help them. And it's like you pull the pin on the grenade, throw the grenade at them and run in the opposite direction, never, ever to see them again. Sales. is all about the mopping up, if you ask for the sale and you don't get it there and then on the call, that's absolutely fine. I am not a salesy person that's going to pressure anyone into anything. When I get on alignment calls for the framework, I am literally as interested in whether or not you are a good fit for our group and whether or not you will benefit at all from what I've created as I am with selling it to you. Because I don't want you in there if you're not going to get a huge transformation. That's why it exists. I don't want you in there if you are going to dominate the private chats with just nonsense and you're just someone who's not willing to do the action. Or you're never going to watch a video. You're never going to participate. That's not what that's all about. Nope. So it's a two way street. And the same is with your clients. That's how sales gets easier when you stop selling and you're Just coming from a place of I've got this amazing thing. It can help. I just want to know if it's a good fit for you. If it is a good fit, do you want it? Do you not want it? You don't want it? Okay. No problems. One last chance. If they haven't explicitly emailed me to say we've decided against this for now, thank you. Goodbye. In which case you just always keep the relationship open to send an email back and say, not a problem. That's great. Thanks for letting me know. So I can release your allotment back to the next person. I nearly said victim then. Oh my God. Back to the next person who would like to work with me. So my advice is set yourself some sort of reminder and look, let's be honest. Let's call a spade a spade. A lot of interior designers are getting pretty low inquiry on their website. Like it's manageable, right? You are not getting 600 people on the contact us form on your website in a week, and therefore you need a full on CRM system that's moving them through the process. I have a CRM system in the framework. I have a CRM system in my business. I love using it because I love being able to, I just love those sorts of pretty tech things that work for me, but it is okay at the start just to have a discovery call with someone, let's call them Sarah, and write them on the 1st of April is today, Sarah discovery call 1215, and then move her to the 3rd of April and say, Sarah, follow up discovery call. And then move her to the 5th of April and say Sarah, final follow up call and just move it along in your calendar. I am going to go out on a limb and picture that it's no more than 3 to 5 inquiries in a fortnight for people who are needing this particular episode of designing success. So I think that's totally manageable. I think where we're falling down is just being afraid to follow up. Not sure, like Google reasons to follow up and then call. And literally, that's why I actually set people up with a tentative hold in my calendar, because it gives me a reason to contact them again and say, Hey, I have someone interested in that time slot. Just wondering, are you still making your decision or can I have it back or what's happening? Okay. And the very last one from me today will be that you have no accountability in your solo small business. Accountability is massive. Ever notice you can have those weeks and you are just doing like a whole bunch of micro tasks, but nothing's getting completed, but you don't have a boss or somebody to say, Hey, I walked past your desk. I walked past your computer screen six times today and every time I did you were like on the iconic shopping for boots or you were doing this and that like I used to work in that corporate environment and God I hated being micromanaged like that but it did make me really accountable for the hours, like when I was at work, I was working and the things that I was doing, it taught me that it's not actually appropriate just to be doing thousands of personal tasks in a work day. However, when we set up our own business, we're like, yes, designing our own success. We can get on the iconic and shop for boots and no one can tell us no. And that's great. That's brilliant benefit. I am all about flexibility in my business. It's a huge brand value, but I have to know Hold myself accountable as well and it's something it's one of the key reasons that there's so much success inside of the framework Is that accountability if you're in a group coaching any group coaching environment and you say oh this week I'm gonna push my website live and I'm getting my business cards printed and then I want to talk next week about driving more leads to my homepage of what I can do for SEO. If that's what you said you would do, you're going to show up next week and give that group an update on what happened. So you are honestly, I don't even know the statistics. You're like 690 percent more likely to have pushed your website live. Then if you said to yourself, God, that website really needs to go live, it's. I can't do anything until it's live because we all know how we sit in a pocket of procrastination when our website is pending any kind of improvements or publishing. Yeah, I just think accountability, I just see it working so well. Even we have in some So you can see that I've got a couple of really good friends that are on the inside of the framework accountability buddies where some of the girls pair off and they're doing particular tasks, whether it's getting to know each other's business at a better level so they can help each other with marketing. One can role play being the ideal client and what are their problems. And then the other one can brainstorm from that. Or I might say, Hey, you still sound a bit wobbly in your processes. Do you want to break off into a group and practice that? Or why don't you guys call each other and just, like spitball, some ideas for asking for the sale. So there is like a real community group feeling and a real sense of accountability, which means she gets done and that's really important. And that's one of the big benefits of actually investing in 12 months working with a group is that like you get really good friendships, really strong, sense of community, but you also get that accountability where every week you're showing up and we're talking about something different. We've got masterclasses. So last week we talked to Jen from interiors addict, and she came in and gave us all tips on how to get our interior design projects. into media, pitch them to media, what sort of documents or pitch packs or media packs, what that looks like, how to level up our copywriting, that sort of stuff. Like all of that sits in the now masterclass that they can rewatch, but all of them showed up. They made commitments to the, Pitching to something and for some of them they already sent pictures out. I haven't heard yet It's been less than a week and we are technically on school holidays, but you know if one of them gets published That's a massive win that wouldn't have happened if you're just sitting at home as a solo business owner going gosh I really must learn how or think about Getting myself to Published or you know having an article or an angle that I can pitch out to media You just wouldn't know how to do it You wouldn't know how to start you wouldn't have the confidence to give it a go and you wouldn't get That kind of level of 20 plus years journalist experience that jen brought into the framework last week to actually give us behind the scenes actionable Tips on what to do next. So yeah, that accountability piece is so strong for me. And I think I feel so passionately about it because I floundered so hard in the first three years without it, like without having anywhere to focus my attention, you have to be so autonomous and you have to do everything yourself anyway, in small business, that this is just one little thing that you can invest in to level up, to make sure that you feel really supported and you've got someone to go to when you're like, Oh my God. This client's just ghosted me. I don't know what to do. I spent ages on the design brief that I sent out to her and she won't get back to me. She's paid the deposit and I accidentally gave her the finished shopping list and now she won't pay the final. What do I do? What do I do? Those are the things that we workshop together inside of the framework and that is how all those vulnerable conversations that we have just make people so much more connected and I love it for that. Okay, so those were just like seven or eight things that might be feeling hard in your business right now and some actionable solutions that you can take. I would love, love, love to see you sit down with that paper and think about what value you bring. What is your simple process? What is your pricing? Walk through your sales process. Okay from the very first interaction with my business. What do I do next? What do I do after that? When do I ask for the sale? When do I follow up? What does that all look like? What is that workflow? You might not be there yet, and you might really struggle with this stuff, and that's fine. There's help out there. Come and see me. Come and see the framework. Come and talk to anyone who's been in business for longer than you about what they did when they were struggling with the same things. Because, Most people want to help. It's not as secretive out there as you think. If you heard anything in today's episode that was a bit of a light bulb moment for you or that you went, Oh God, yes, I would love to get that piece of paper and do that. And I think that's really valuable advice. It would mean the world to me if you could share this with your business. Best friend with someone that you connect with another creative service based business, with another interior designer, someone that you think might benefit from going, okay, I'm going to do a little health check on my business this week. And just double check that all of this feels good and it does feel easy in all of these areas. Yes. If you could share it to your stories, tag at Oleander underscore and underscore five. Finch, leave a review so that more people could actually find this podcast and it starts to rank on the charts. That would be amazing. I would absolutely love that. If you find that there are actionable pieces that help your business, please come and tell everybody else that in an Apple review so that we can grow. But until next week, this and join me back here on Thursday, where we're going to be talking all things, property staging and styling. I have just done a massive overview on a huge. Section coming soon to the framework that focuses on all of the calculators and things that you need in the background to set up a staging business and all of the things that you need to have some more consideration around. So if that's of any interest to you, if you are an existing property stylist or you are someone who wants to get into that or maybe merge your current interior design business over to do a little bit more staging to sell or get in with some agents. That is going to be something that I'm focused on in the near future, but join me on Thursday. You're really going to love this behind the scenes tour chat to you then. Bye for now. That wraps up another episode of Designing Success from Study to Studio. Thanks for lending me your ears. Remember, progress over perfection is the key. If you found value in today's episode, go ahead and hit subscribe or share it with a friend. Your feedback means so much to me and it helps me improve, but it also helps this podcast reach more emerging and evolving designers. For your daily dose of design business tips and to get a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes, follow at oleander underscore and underscore finch on Instagram. You'll find tons of resources available at www. oleanderandfinch. com to support you on your journey. Remember, this is your path, your vision, your future, and your business. Now let's get out there and start designing your success.