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Designing Success
Designing Success from School to Studio by Rhiannon Lee is dedicated to filling in the gaps in your design course to encourage you to build a sustainable business that supports your dream lifestyle.
Are you searching for strategy, systems and support? Looking for a community to bounce industry issues around in? In this podcast, we will cover the interior design business infrastructure you need to supplement your design school curriculum with practical insights and actionable advice. We also cover all things marketing, product innovation, client acquisition, and more. Go beyond the theory, filter through the stuff that doesn’t serve you and get on with creating.
You will find real talk with industry professionals, practical tactics from business realists that leave you reenergised and focused on exactly how to improve the current landscape of your own business. For more behind the scenes of the interior design industry, check out oleander and finch in Instagram https://instagram.com/oleander_and_finch
or head to www.oleanderandfinch.com
Episodes
182 episodes
Are you over-delivering in your proposal?
Interior designers often over-deliver at proposal stage — sharing mood boards, design direction, and creative strategy before a client has signed or paid a deposit. This episode asks whether that's genuinely good service or anxiety dressed up a...
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Why AI is making hourly billing dangerous for interior designers
Value pricing means charging for the outcome your client gets, not the hours it took you to deliver it. In 2026, that distinction matters more than ever — because AI is making designers faster, and if you're still billing by the hour, that effi...
“You’re Behind” Is the biggest lie in AI right now.
AI is not replacing interior designers — it's replacing average ones. Rhiannon Lee, AI strategist for Australian interior designers, breaks down why "AI killed my industry" is lazy marketing, how pattern recognition software produces same...
Where to actually start with AI in your design business (and what to stop doing)
Interior designers who feel overwhelmed by AI typically don't have a tool problem — they have a prioritisation problem. Australian AI strategist Rhiannon Lee recommends three starting points: spend four minutes meeting Claude, do a five-minute ...
Stop charging for the process (and other things I'm yelling about while the kids trash the house)
Join the email list to get the business restructure challenge, 'Studio Build' updates HERE The kids are on school holidays, there's a triple bunk being installed, an...
Posting AI slop isn't saving you time, it's costing you clients.
AI adoption jumped dramatically in the first quarter of 2026 ... and so did the slop. In this episode Rhiannon gets into the conversation she's been sitting on: what AI-generated content actually looks like, why it keeps happening, and what the...
The AI data conversation nobody in the design industry is having... but should be.
You've probably pasted a client brief into an AI tool this week. Maybe a site visit transcript. A proposal draft. A mood board description with the client's full name, address, and renovation budget attached. And there's...
Build your Interior Design Project databases automatically with AI
I uploaded a six-month-old transcript from a client consult and got a complete Notion project dashboard in about eight seconds.Find out how HERE Every action ite...
rethinking how we renovate, with Bradley Montag
In this episode of Designing Success, I sit down with interior designer Bradley Montag to talk about the intersection of design, property, and town planning. Bradley began his career as a town planning lawyer before t...
How to set your studio up properly to use a variety of AI tools
AI is everywhere right now — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Midjourney, Nano Banana — and interior designers are being told they need to learn all of it.But the real problem isn’t the tools.It’s the lack of context.
the 12 core shifts interior design businesses need to step into their CEO era
Studio CEO Are you running a successful interior design studio but feeling exhausted, undercharging, and stuck in technician mode? In this episode, Rhiannon Lee — found...
Can you run a successful interior design business and have a baby?
In this honest roundtable episode, Rhiannon Lee is joined by four interior designers and property stylists to talk about pregnancy, maternity leave, cashflow, systems, staffing and what really happens when you mix motherhood with business owner...
How smart design studios use local marketing to get in front of clients before the renovation has even begun.
Studio CEO (formerly Framework Express) is now open for the next cohort. Join the waitlist HERE Interior designers keep asking, “Where are the next clients coming from?” In this episode, I break down practical l...
If you think Instagram has changed, You’re right. This is why AI matters more than the algorithm in 2026
Check out Penelope, the AI powered proposal generator In this episode of Designing Success From Study to Studio, Rhiannon Lee breaks down the biggest shift int...
Why your design business feels heavier this year, and what to fix first.
This episode is a reset.I’m talking honestly about why business feels heavier this year, why motivation is harder to access, and what I actually saw work across 2025 inside real interior design businesses.I walk through the three ...
15 Quick Questions to get unstuck for the girlies who can't stop makeing it harder than it needs to be
would you take on another designers project after they split from the client?
Reach out to chat about 90 minute strategy sessions HEREWelcome to an awkward but common moment in studio life. A client ends things with their first designer, then asks ...
The secret life of a Property Stylist with Angie, of Meraki Property Styling
Meet Angie HERE Meet Penelope
Instagram Do's and Dont’s >> 2025 edit.
The audio in this one was a little off but on a week where covid is in my house and it's end of term I'm rolling with done is better than Perf. Please stick around it'll be fixed next week! Enter