Designing Success

A chit chat with my ‘ride or die’ about the birth of her own design business - Sienne ✨

• rhiannon lee

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Speaker 7:

Welcome to Designing Success from Study to Studio. I'm your host Rhiannon Lee, founder of the Oleander and 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.

Speaker 6:

Oh my gosh, this week's episode is such a joy to bring to you. I was lucky enough to chat to my friend Kat or Catherine, who is the founder of Scene, which is a new-ish interior design firm, but it's one that I've been lucky enough to witness come alive from studying. I've known Kat for a really long time. In fact, we have been friends because our kids went to 3-year-old kinder together, and then we had weekly dates throughout Covid on a house party, if anybody remembers that. And we really built our relationship and our friendship. She's my absolute ride and die. There are three of us. Cass, who's missing? Big shout out to you because I feel like I was looking through the photos and I kept having to crop Cass out. Cass is a working dietician and we are not. So we try to keep our chats about interior design separate away from the dynamic of the three of us. But this was really nice because we finally sat down and just talked about. Her discovering what she wants to do in the industry and who she is and her voice and all the different things. And I think you're really gonna like it because it's always really nice to either resonate and think back to when you started or to hear someone else going through the exact same things and feel like, okay, yep, I'm on track. I'm tracking well, so I'm not gonna waste any more of your time. Let's listen to the conversation that I had with Catherine from scene.

Speaker:

Hello?

Speaker 2:

Oh, hello. How are you? Good, how are you? I am good, but I'm just sending an email. Most podcast guests, I be like,

Speaker:

I'm ready. And you, I'm like, you need to wait. I'm sending an email. Just that's totally fine.

Speaker 2:

I wanted to kick off with though, because obviously full, not obviously, but full disclosure to anyone listening, you are not just a student inside of the framework or somebody that I've met in the design industry. Our children went to 3-year-old Pinder together. So we met when I was studying design that year and you were in a completely different industry. So do you wanna take us all the way back to, all the way

Speaker 3:

back

Speaker 2:

then and just give me a bit of background, around what were you doing then and what was the catalyst to decide to come over to the dark side with me?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, sure. So I was working when we met, I was almost 15 years into working. In wholesale fashion in a niche area of the industry. So I was designing lingerie and underwear, which was an extremely cool thing to tell people when I was in my twenties at clubs. Not such a cool thing to tell people at school. Drop off and pick up in your thirties. And I worked with quite a specific group of retailers, so I was working with discount department stores and supermarkets. So not a whole heap of creativity, but I think at one stage I had 18 accounts and I was working with 20 different retailers. Each retailer has their own platforms. There's a lot of admin a lot of data entry, not a lot of creativity. So

Speaker 2:

quite a few transferable skills though, because I imagine there's things that you were like, oh, actually I have a working reference of that because of my previous employer.

Speaker 3:

A hundred percent. I think lots of things that I could transfer into interiors. Some things like knowing the testing requirements of a three mil elastic, probably not as, as useful as other things like managing client relations and definitely already having knowledge of the design process. That was obviously a huge help when I decided to go and look into studying interiors.

Speaker 2:

I would imagine because you work for someone else, you see a lot of what you would do and what you definitely wouldn't do if it were your business or if you were in charge of, more, if you have more creative control. I guess what was the catalyst or what was it that drew you to interior design specifically as the next move in your career?

Speaker 3:

I think exactly what you just said there was and I think saying it's soul crushing is a bit dramatic, but seeing an idea then have to go through this tier of different managements, not just in my company, but then in the retailer's company. You'd see your design get watered down throughout each stage. You didn't have that creative control. That was definitely something that I'm like, I really wanna gain that back and have that creative control over just working with the client one-on-one rather than having all these different things going on that then it wasn't true to me and what I wanted as a creative. So I guess I was definitely at a crossroads with fashion. I was thinking, is it the job that I'm not loving? Is it the industry I'm not loving? I worked with, it was such a small area. There's only so much you can do with underwear. It is an area where there's a lot of innovation. So I was working with a lot of sustainable fabrics and things like that, which was really interesting. But I had a little bit of issues with that and the way the sustainability was being marketed. I was just in this which way do I wanna go from a creative perspective. Was it the job I didn't love? Was it the industry? I also had two young girls at home. I'd had my babies. I wasn't putting a hundred percent in at work and I wasn't putting a hundred percent in at home. And then Covid hit and I think like a lot of us, it really gave us an opportunity to take stock and think, okay, what are our priorities? We led a very hectic life before Covid, and I think it was the first opportunity that the four of us really had a moment to be like, oh, this is our family unit and what would we like as a family unit? And I think for me, spending all that time working from home, even though I was working ridiculous hours actually spending time with the girls and realizing what I was missing out on, I think that for me was the catalyst to say, okay, I can't be putting in 12 hour days anymore. It's. The fashion industry is a really hard industry to have young children in and have that flexibility. So I definitely think that word flexibility was one of the reasons why I really liked the idea of interiors and owning wearing business and being able to fit it in around what we were seeing as the priority for our family.

Speaker 2:

Be honest, you just wanted to be me, didn't you?

Speaker:

Yeah, I was definitely like coming back from kinder drop off, like, why, what am I doing with my life? I need to do ance

Speaker 3:

doing?

Speaker:

Yeah. You're like, what have you been doing this afternoon? And I'm

Speaker 2:

like, I'm ironing linen bedsheets so I can change everything over and take a photo for Instagram. Those were those days of just like hectically exploring my own creativity and stuff too.'cause I was very new at that stage, pre covid. When we were at the kinder together, I had. Maybe two clients a month. Like I had barely even started taking clients on myself. And so yeah, definitely those early days were a totally different ball game.

Speaker 3:

I definitely do remember those moments where I would walk away from us having a chat because we were always the only ones there for some reason. The early because so early organized people. Yeah. Yeah. And you would be telling me what you were doing with your studies and what you were doing with Instagram and clients, and I was just like, oh, I'm just like heading back to home to sit on my laptop and argue over 5 cents with an offshore supplier. Oh, this is just, this is soul destroying.

Speaker 2:

I think also 15 years is a strong, I have 15 years when I was with STA if you haven't done that before, it is a very big part of your life. And you talked about that. Crossing specific decades, partying, clubbing, your twenties, your thirties, having kids, it you always reassess and nothing made us reassess like covid. I think it's a really important point to be like, actually everyone went to ground and went, what do I want the best version of my life to look like? Because it made us feel like life is precious and fleeting and we didn't, we were worried about stuff. And so I think that there's a lot of people whose complete shift in focus was born from that time and that and the pandemic in general.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2:

You did something interesting though that I don't think I know of. Another example of somebody who has attended both the design school and the Interior Design Institute. So one wasn't enough for you, you had to one up and go and get two. I wanna talk a little bit about that because I think there's a whole bunch of listeners out there going, why though? Like, why would you do that? And can you explain to me what the thought process was like? Why did you wanna do both of them?

Speaker 3:

I have to say, when I started at design school and was putting out on my Instagram page that's what I was doing. I had lots of people coming into my dms like, why are you doing this? Why are you doing one when you've already done the other? So I think going back to. Me looking just down this path and not committing to it. It was, yeah, we were still in Covid. It was actually my husband, during these conversations of what are our priorities? What are we doing moving forward? He's a cabinet maker by trade, so he actually said to me, I come home, I talk about all these things. You're so into it. Have you ever thought of doing interiors? And I loved, I've loved interiors for years and years, but I never really saw it as, oh yeah, this is something that I could pursue until that moment. So the IDI course for me was just, I think I was at the right place at the right time. I was still working full-time. I really loved the idea that so I did the certificate, not the diploma. I really loved the idea that it was self-paced, the commitment level that I needed for it was exactly what I needed at that point. And for me, what IDI did for me was. That it really just set this really great foundation of knowledge for me to build up from. I entered that course thinking is this gonna be for me? And then came out the other end like, oh yes, I really wanna pursue this. But I feel like I just need to learn a little bit more. But my main reason was that the IDI course for me was quite a lonely experience. I know that, and I know that you've been on the Facebook community page that's associated. With IDII don't have Facebook. In hindsight, I probably just should have started a new account and hopped on there so that it wasn't so lonely.

Speaker 2:

It's very hard when something's self-paced though, because you're up to a bit where they're not and Exactly. They're module chats and things. I don't go on Facebook that much but at the time, yes, when I was in the course, I could definitely go on and ask questions or do things, but I felt very much a similar experience. I don't, I couldn't name one other person who was going through IDI at the same time as B by name. Like I didn't know anyone. Yeah. So it is very much but for all the same reasons, it's all I could do with a six week old baby.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. And that was towards the end of 2021. And then I left my full-time job at the start of 2022 because as and took on a job where he was away for he was going to be away for 10 months and was working away for the week and then just coming back on the weekend. Very like specific and personal to my experience and why I did things the way I did. But I decided to take a step back from fashion with the thought, I'm going to test the waters with interiors and then see at the end if I wanna go back to fashion or continue down this path. And obviously I haven't gone back, continued down this path. But I think after. I was halfway through the IDI course when I started design school. And I loved the idea of design school because it came up on my radar from people that I was following on Instagram. I feel with IDI, it gave me this really great as I said, like foundation of knowledge. But then I was seeing people on Instagram, like attending industry events, and there was just this whole part of the industry that I felt like, how do I understand the industry as it stands today? How do I start going to events? How like I wanted to start speaking to people in person and not just. A fleeting conversation on Instagram or, oh, what are you doing? Oh, I'm doing this. DS for me was really more of a social reason for applying, and I'm really glad I did because it actually delivered on that 120%. I really came out of there feeling quite supported by my peers. We were obviously all moving through it at the same time. We were all working towards the same deadlines. We were all, experiencing the same pain with certain assignments at the same time. So in that respect, it was really fantastic. There were things that one course delivered that the others, that the other didn't as much from a content perspective. So that was really amazing. I guess this might just go to how I was brought up as well. You need that piece of paper. Yeah. To be told that you can, you are qualified for a job. So in the back of my mind, the certificate wasn't an accredited course and I did feel like I wanted to move ahead and either do the diploma or the Cert iv. And again, design School was exactly what I needed from a commitment level. It was two hours a week class on Zoom, and then it was how much time and effort I wanted to put into the assignments outside of that.

Speaker 2:

I feel like design school has a specific aesthetic that it attracts as well, and it's always fit very well with the aesthetic that I've seen you, whether it's, do some graphic design or do some other things like. I shouldn't probably say that. It's not as though you don't fit if you don't have that similar aesthetic, but it attracts a certain type of designer. We see it time and time again. Those that graduate all have the, I don't know what it is, but I definitely look at work and I can almost 100% confidently say, design school graduate, IDI graduate, blah, blah. I can see the learnings in what they're producing and that's great. That's, it's almost like a niche or whatnot. But I do also think that is a lane that was probably very attractive to you because it's definitely one that supports you to continue with that aesthetics that you already had or that you're attracted to in design in general.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, definitely. I think that heading into it, all the people that I'd been following on Instagram that it had popped up, oh, I've done the design school course that I was, as you said, like I was attracted to that. But being in the course, I was actually really surprised at how like the diverse backgrounds that people were coming to the course from. There were lots of people in my class that had a healthcare background, which for me was really interesting because it was actually quite nice to be chatting with people with a different perspective on things. Rather than us all just doing the same thing and having the same aesthetic.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It's interesting that you said that about healthcare actually. Like I think about all the frameworks that I've had through the course and there's been midwives and teachers is also a really popular career change into design. Yeah. But ironically, I have also had a lingerie designer. Before, which is funny. That's come through. That's true. True of us. Exactly. From that same place. So if you're ever looking to have a chat to Kerry from Rocky Cove, then she has come from lingerie design. Oh, love that. Interior design.

Speaker 3:

I didn't know that. I'll have to reach out to her.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You guys will start a whole sub conversation about sustainable elastics and how they're not relevant to what you're currently doing. Yeah. It's interesting to me because I feel like starting your own business, the easy way to have done that would've been to hit yourself to Andrew's cabinet making business and literally just be the onsite interior designer. Or have conversations over and over about cabinetry profiles and joinery and just stay in that lane.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

How did it come about that you were like, no, I'm actually gonna, brand a business, create my own business and have interior design clients. Is it just through what you learned in design school and being like, I wanna do all of it and I don't wanna pigeonhole, or was that ever even discussed between you two?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So originally the idea was that I would work at craft scale and I would be the in-house designer for anybody that came in that wanted ideas that needed that additional help. But Andrew's model for the business was always that it, he w he wanted to work with architects and builders, and he just wanted to go in at that level and he didn't wanna be dealing with

Speaker:

homeowners, the

Speaker 3:

client side of things and the design side of things.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So then, because he was such a supporter of you studying it in the first place was that just a case of saying now you have your business, I have mine, we're gonna build something more flexible around the girls and, just see how it goes.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, definitely. I think in the back of my mind, always Andrew's business is such a juggernaut that, and it's not about prioritizing one over the other, it's just that our businesses need to, they need to work differently in order for it to work for our family.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And they need to orbit around each other too. Hundred percent, as you say, if one is a complete juggernaut, the other one can't match or grow beyond that. Easily not. Not while still prioritizing flexibility. I think it can happen. If you've got two ambitious people and both businesses go nuts, great. Bring on team, do whatever. But when we talk about designing success, that doesn't always look like a team. Like I don't feel like you would want to grow into a business where you had to have 12 girls. And guys joining you throughout the week in the home of, I, yeah. That feels very unaligned to me.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think it's taken me a long time to settle in and be comfortable with the fact that what this business looks like for me and what I need it to be. So for me, I need this business to work in around school hours. So I need, my working day is nine until three. I really try hard not to open my laptop or to be really bogged down in doing anything that I need to be a hundred percent concentrating on once the girls are home. We do have, obviously, activities after school that we're going and doing, and then if I cannot get to everything that I need to get to in that six hours a day, I'll then log back on at nighttime. But that was something that I used to do in my past job, and obviously it got me to a point where I was at. Like complete burnout. So I am very conscious of not falling into that same trap of just working 24 7 and not realizing it until it's too late. That kind of helps me a little bit in not procrastinating about things because I know that the time that I have allocated to this is so precious. So there are days when obviously I come out of it feeling much more productive than others. But to, I think, to know that's the growth that I want at this moment. It's not to say that it won't grow further down the track once the girls are a little bit more grown up and a bit more independent. But where I'm at right now and what I need this business to do for me personally and for my family, this is where it needs to be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I'm very conscious of a similar thing. There are other mentors and other people who offer courses who are very much in the growing game, and there's paid ads behind everything they do. Yeah. And it's all about volume. And I often remind myself I'm not running that race. I actually, with. Organic marketing and just with integrity and just conversations, bring in all the right people that I need around me, but I can only support and facilitate the courses again, inside of school hours. Like you, my kids are very little, have a toddler still. And I, yeah, I never really want to strive to be the same as these seven figure coaches with all these, keynote speaker appearances in the us Who do I think I am going over to Philadelphia to talk. What about my children? My baby is three years old. Like he doesn't want me to fly first class to Philadelphia for Yeah. So it's always like grounding and really important to remember what you're actually doing it for. And originally re when we met and I was only taking the one or two clients, I was trying to work up to a place where I could replace my 10 hour a week job as a wedding coordinator.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. I

Speaker 2:

was literally only trying to replace 10 hours of work with 10 hours of, like with the same income effectively. Yeah. It just took me. 40 hours to do what I could now do in 45 minutes because I was just slow and clunky and no processes. And that's a whole different podcast episode. But I remember how many conversations that I would come in and you'd be like, what are you I worked until 2:00 AM like I was mood boarding until 2:00 AM was a very common thing for me to say. And that's because I was with the kids little my eldest, our eldest was three, three and a half at the time in 3-year-old kinder, and then banjo was just born, had newborn. And I, I didn't open the laptop up, there wasn't after school so much. But I didn't work in front of them because I didn't want to be like that, so I didn't open the laptop till they finally settled. And sometimes you start your working day at, 7, 8, 9 o'clock at night.

Speaker:

Yeah. Was

Speaker 2:

why those 2:00 AM mornings. Like I hard do not recommend. It's not a very sustainable way to kick off a business. But I do really like that you're across that in terms of. Being realistic with yourself and knowing that, forward momentum is still momentum. You're still moving in the right direction. And it's not all about get checking everything in the framework off in the first six months, or you can't clock a business if you set up a business and you create something that supports your lifestyle properly, it should be a long game. You should be able to look at it like this decades plan, next decades plan. There will come a time where our kids can do something for themselves,

Speaker 4:

and then we'll

Speaker 2:

be like, oh hey, you cut your own bowl of fruit. Amazing. I've just got five minutes back of my life and I can go and do something else. So yeah, I feel like we're in a very similar stage obviously,'cause our children are the same age, but then they work. Yeah. And that is another thing that I look at. There are a lot of people in this industry who are it's a late career change and most of the established designers that I work with have at least. Early high school to later older kids, it feels like they've been able to act actively. That inspires me somewhat because I'm like, yeah, it's not too late for me. When my kids are older, I'll actually start to get some of that same freedom that I'm helping them plan perfect weeks. And I think, and I look at them and I'm like, what do you mean they're, do you know, you don't have to be so present as you do when they're really young.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I think that I a hundred percent agree with that. What I see my business looking like in another 10 years is obviously completely different to what it looks like now. And it's just, like I said, just settling into the fact that it's okay to have your business looking a certain way. It doesn't have to look like, I want it to look like in 20 years, in this instance. So it's not saying that I don't have aspirations because that's important as well. But I think. Balance looks different to everyone, right? I'm not saying that people shouldn't be, working like if that works for you, that's fantastic. I just, yeah. For me right now, this is what works for me. But I'm not, definitely not saying that other, how other people work is the wrong way or anything like that.

Speaker 2:

It's nice to have the awareness, like self-awareness and things too, because that allows you to balance like your marketing efforts. Like what is the point of becoming a marketing megatron only to build all these leads that you can't possibly convert that amount of people or you can't sustain you can't actually actively bring on or onboard that amount of people. So that's all gotta be relative as well. So rather than putting all this work into Instagram to daily posts to grow this audience, to grow the conversion. But what for, if you only wanna take X amount of. Projects per year or clients per month. I think it's really important that you are Yeah. You know that and you're working towards those own goals instead of,'cause first year designers often, those own goals really do blend into just industry goals or goals across the board or things that we saw someone else say they want a hundred percent. And they can also be quite not vanity led, but they're often things like followers open a studio. Yeah. Things that are actively chasing confidence to beat the imposter syndrome down. Really. It's almost like all the pretty things that you can think of that you might be like, if I had a studio, I could be a real designer when I get my, piece of paper. I'm a qualified designer, but you've, yeah. You learn a lot more on the job than you do in your hypothetical percent courses. Yeah. So is there anything in the first year that you've seen,'cause obviously the first year is such a steep learning curve, that was like a really unexpected lesson or something that surprised you so much about launching a business.

Speaker 3:

I think know how to say this without it coming across as really arrogant, but I. My biggest surprise was that I came out of school and had five clients lined up. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's not arrogance. That's. That referred along the way sometimes, whether that's referrals, whether it's, a lot of people can have five clients instantly if you went out and actively asked friends and family. There's a lot of people who forget to talk about the fact that they're in design school or that they're doing this thing. Is that where they came from? Do you think you actively speaking about it or?

Speaker 3:

There were, it was half, so half of them actually came to me through Instagram which was, yeah. That was amazing. And then the other half was in home consults that had happened through family or friends who had told somebody else, who had told somebody else that I existed and we got in contact and, yeah. Yeah. Or I felt like I didn't really have that breathing space to say, okay, what do I want the business to look like and what do I wanna do with my clients and what do my processes and procedures look like? Even just at that sort of top level oh, I think it will look like this. I was really just running on the fly the first couple of months and going with the flow a little bit and I was working in different ways with different clients and how I felt that they wanted to work. So the first couple of months I just didn't take a breath and then it all stopped and I was like, okay, now what am I doing? Which I then had an opportunity to work on the fundraiser with the Christmas lookbook, which was something I really wanted to do at the end of the year before, which I didn't have time to. So threw myself into all of that.

Speaker 2:

I think it is surprising to have a baptism of fire and I think most people expect you graduate and six to nine months you faff around making documents and getting the preparation. You line your ducks up in a row and then you actively go and start to get clients. Yeah. And so I think it is a surprise when you come out and you're like, oh, I've got these inquiries, like getting inquiries from Instagram. The first thing that I hear most people send to me is a screenshot and is this a scam? Because they cannot believe, oh my God, why would anyone be doing this when you're new? Yeah. And you're like, I haven't really said. Bookings are now open. And I haven't had to beg for it. Yeah. And look, it isn't a case of arrogance. It isn't a case of luck because you have worked for it. And it also isn't a case of people who don't have that haven't done the right thing. It can be right time, right place, right aesthetic. Certainly with Instagram, people are drawn to a specific look and a way of curating things. And you have an excellent eye for curation in terms of composition and more of that sort of graphic design edge to things that you do, which can make them look years ahead professionally. Then maybe you feel like, the duck floating on the surface, but the legs going underneath and you so up the surface it's oh, I look, everything's going quite well. But underneath you're like, there's no onboarding process. I don't have a welcome pack. I don't even know what a welcome pack is for.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I think I have one that's like a merge of three different kind of documents into one that I can send out to a client. And but now I feel like I've had this breathing time over the break to really, I mean I really haven't reflected on all of this'cause I've been moving so quickly and just feel like I've been studying for two and a half years nonstop across two universe. Yeah,

Speaker 4:

I've done two degrees, don't forget.

Speaker 3:

So I think I really had that time to reflect over the Christmas break and I've come into this year a little bit more clear about what I want my processes to look like, what I want my, I'm in the middle of reviewing my services again and I feel like I'm just starting from scratch again, but also taking all the learnings from working with those clients last year. Say what worked, what didn't move forward. Yeah. So I think that yeah, I think that was definitely a surprise. I think. Yeah, definitely. The other surprise was how supportive the industry is. Coming from fashion, I was very lucky to be working in a little corner of the industry that just had the most lovely people working in it. I could probably count on one hand how many devil wears Prish people I came across, which was a bit confronting because that's just not my jam. But so I was a little bit worried coming into the interior space and thinking, okay, what are people gonna be really competitive? Are people gonna be really open and supportive? And I've definitely found the latter. The support that I have, especially on socials and the people that I've met through socials and how willing they are to support you and vice versa. I think that probably took me by surprise, but was also a really refreshing thing to come across. I think that probably that continues to surprise me, to be honest. I think even you're still

Speaker 2:

waiting

Speaker 3:

for someone to take their wolf mask

Speaker 2:

off. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Even to today, I'm like, oh, that was a really lovely thing for someone to post. Or yeah. I really appreciate the support, especially when you're sitting here solo by yourself, second guessing everything you're doing. It's nice to have that outside voice every now and then to say, Hey, you're doing a great job. Keep going. Which yeah, is, it's a really lovely thing to be part of.

Speaker 2:

I remember back when I was writing the framework and I remember talking to you and stuff, and I honestly threw the group calls in as like a I suppose I'll do a Zoom call every week. Because they might have questions about, obviously it's not just here's your course, go away. Yeah. And I was like, it'll be fine. That'll be good. I'll at least be able to see as they move through and and spot any feedback, any things that I need. They are hands down my favorite part of the course in terms of the community, the support, the conversations, and being able to workshop live, what's coming up for them this week because all of the business and marketing skills and things you can learn, but then there is this whole subset of skills that. More around mindset and confidence and imposter syndrome. Yeah. And like they, they rear up weekly. They still get to you from time to time, even seven years into business, yeah. Comparing yourself to others, competitiveness, like all sorts of stuff. And that, those are the things that I think it's really critical that you have that weekly group that you can, nothing's off the table and you can come in and it's. It's more people than know people. It's not lonely. It's not just you in your office, but it's not one of those design of Facebook groups of 176,000 people and you're supposed to show up and say, I'm really battling putting myself out there because every time I share something I'm crippled with anxiety that people are gonna think it's terrible. And like being able to have those conversations together, like you're in the framework too and just showing up and knowing that, one week you might be there, the next you might not if you don't need something for that week, but that is that same group and that you can ask anything off the record. I just think it's become my favorite part of it. The other stuff now the other stuff feels like gravy when it's actually the core learnings because I just enjoy those calls so much. I just see so much growth.'cause I watch you for 12 months come in from barely wanting to speak up in the calls to being like very actively part of the community

Speaker 4:

near the end.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think that was one of the things that, yeah, I mentioned that I loved about design school and we were put into study groups. So you had the support of your class, but you then also had the support of your little group. And I think that was one of the things that I just had. So it's we had so much of it and then. We just had our last lesson and that kind of stopped. And even though I still see my study group and we're still in contact and we're still supporting each other through all the different paths that we're going down I do think that the framework definitely provided me with that. But on days when I'm just like, oh, I'm just sitting here and I will just run through Slack and see what everyone's been chatting about and I'm like, oh yeah, that's a really great perspective. And yeah, hopping on the calls, even though I know I was really slack at the end of last year doing it, but getting on the calls and actually seeing that, you're not in this alone and you're not the only one struggling or having issues or, there's learnings that other people have that you can learn from as well. It's just, yeah, I think having that community. Probably if we're talking about surprising things, that's probably something that I realized I do miss and I do need and having just that support network when you're starting your business and I think even the further along I go into my business, I'm still gonna need that support network. Yeah, I think that's really important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. All sorts of community is so important. Like I've implemented this year, my CEO Thursday, so I'm having my just half an hour meeting at the cafe, though, not here in the studio.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And meeting, by meeting, I mean me and a coffee, Yeah. There's no one else there. Me and a notebook and some fine liners and some big ideas. CEO moves. But I have done that since the start of the year and I've just found it so good. Even just that I'm not directly walk to school, walk home in the office. On my own. And I've built a virtual community. I built actual humans on ai, built actual staff members. But so my imaginary staff and and then built community through being the facilitator of all of these different, these three different groups and having the framework, collective the framework, express the framework. And I get to catch up with so many girls and build those relationships, which is fantastic. But prior to the course, I didn't have that. And I very much would advocate to anyone listening to do a half day in a cafe book, a showroom visit day so that you're out and about because he is super lonely. Like when I was at the kitchen table and when the kids got a little bit older and went off to, there is this like transition period for me where they weren't little babies, so I wasn't like with them all of the time. And they went off to kinder and other places and I had time to work. But yeah, you're working at the table, you're looking at baskets of washing, like it's very overwhelming. Starting a business in general, I think,

Speaker:

yeah,

Speaker 2:

it's good to look at where can you get that human connection even virtually.

Speaker 3:

Definitely, I think there's days when I realize I'm talking way too much to chat GPT and also then to my dog out loud. And I'm like, okay, I think I need to organize it. An excursion out of the house tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Or you get to school pickup and you like trauma dump on the poor mark at pickup because you haven't see anyone else for the day. And they'll, and they just like placidly ask you a question like, oh, how was your day since pickup? And you're like, yeah. Oh my God. So I've got this thing

Speaker 4:

in minute

Speaker 2:

and then I choose the stone bench top. But then that didn't work because the undertones didn't match the pa and they're like, could not care less.

Speaker 4:

And I

Speaker 2:

have not taken a breath for

Speaker 4:

45 minutes

Speaker:

and the kids are hungry and everyone, the bell

Speaker 4:

went ages ago. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Sorry. And

Speaker:

you're like, I need to get this all out. Just hang on a sec.

Speaker 2:

All captive audience at school pickup. But I feel like we used to be that for each other anyway, back in the day. And like when I was, early days, it would get to kinder and just. Of everything because you haven't seen anyone. And I'm the same with my partner. Aiden walks in the door and he forgets that he works in a high school, in an environment full of people and say he wants to go the other way. He does not wanna make a decision speak because he is been standing in front of a classroom teaching or hear anything.'cause the kids are so loud. And imagine a high school, how loud that is. Oh gosh. A phony of teenagers. Yeah. And then so he gets home and just gets me like,'cause I haven't spoken to anyone. So I think it's very normal to be like that. But I was gonna say,

Speaker 3:

Angie gets the same thing. It's fine.

Speaker 2:

I think the cafes though even there's hub like collective hub work, spot work, what do I wanna say? Yeah workspace, work hub and workspaces and things. And I think I'm seeing more and more girls sign up to do two days a week in them and three days at home or whatnot. And I really support it because I do think, you can end up falling outta love with what you're trying to do when you're doing it all on your own.'cause you are effectively doing every part of the business. Even the bits you didn't sign up for, like it and social media and there's a whole bunch of stuff that you're like, oh wow, I just have to do it all.

Speaker 3:

Yeah,

Speaker 2:

this one feels like a personal attack. I'm gonna read it anyway, even though you're gonna be like, yes. Thanks. So interior design will often lead us down a complete rabbit hole of perfectionism, especially in the early days, and probably especially with a creative background such as yours. Yeah. How do you balance the desire for a perfect aesthetic with the need to just move forward with business tasks and not actually sitting and spending a half a day on an Instagram post?

Speaker 3:

All right. The truthful answer to this is I don't, I'm trying to get so much better at this. Have been a perfectionist forever. Not so much in anything but my work. I think. I, in fashion, it's always been making sure as well that I think if you get the best outcome from your first concept, no matter what it is, if it was a product or a presentation or now a client presentation, I always try to hit the absolute nail on the head because I just wanna get it right the first time. Is that the definition, that's big learning curve perfectionism.

Speaker 2:

It does happen, but when it does, it's almost am I in a, am I being filmed or recorded? Is this like something like I'm being punked when somebody comes back and says no. You're like, excuse me, what? Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Great. Yes. This is what I was aim for. I reckon

Speaker 2:

it's happened twice in seven years. Like it's not a, an often thing. Yeah. So do you find that it's hard then to not like, so I often say to clients like. Give me your feedback, that's absolutely fine. Remembering that I curated this, but I didn't create it. So I'm not gonna be offended if you say to me, that chair's ugly because I didn't make the chair. I'm not the furniture maker. I'm not the furniture designer.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I will have had a reason that I've specified it for you. And as long as that reason has been considered by you before you've thrown it in the trash or you've not liked it, yeah. Then I'm totally fine with it. Let's just have a discussion and my feelings won't be hurt. But if you're trying to nail it to a point where there are no notes, how do you feel then when people bring the notes?

Speaker 3:

I think it's definitely something that I had to work on to just s that personal attachment to projects. I think because it is a lot more personal because you aren't working as a collective team and presenting to another collective team who have management on top of them. And then I had management that I was pleasing. There was a lot of balls in the air in my past role and a lot of people responsible I guess. Whereas now it's just me and a client and it's really hard to not make that a personal experience because I do really, I'm very passionate about what I do. I'm passionate about the deliverables. I'm passionate about making the client feel a certain way so that they understand the vision. I am deeply emotionally invested in things. Having said that though, it's not actually a positive most of the time to be like that. I do feel like I'm really actively trying to remove that emotional element a little bit, because at the end of the day, I don't wanna be spending an entire day looking for the most perfect drug for this concept, when quite possibly the client's gonna see it and say, actually, this isn't really the track that I wanna go down. Maybe we should go, now that I've seen it, maybe I wanna go down something a bit more colorful and I'll be like, oh, I've just spent so long and I'm probably not gonna get paid for that time. Yeah. So I think it's just readjusting my the way that I approach things and the way that I think about things that, yeah, I need to be emotionally invested, but at the same time that needs to be counted with the fact that this is a job and I do need to track my time and. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

it's a learning curve though, like you're in your first year of business and it's something that, you've gotta be burned enough times of researching rugs and then them not going ahead. And I think what happens is within our workflow and our processes, we actually get to a point where we start assessing the importance of each touch point in that customer journey. And the concept touch point becomes let more of like gathering images and a feeling and getting sign off on that before we go to so actually selecting items in a concept means that one whole concept goes to the cutting room floor, right? Yeah. Like it doesn't actually go ahead. And so if you know how long it takes you to select items for an open plan or for whatnot unless you're super speedy at finding of nailing that and getting the right ones, I think that you eventually through, I. Necessity is the mother of all invention, isn't it? So through need of, I don't have enough time'cause my clients are growing and I need to get on with other jobs, you end up finding that your concept process becomes almost vaguer so that you can quickly get an idea of what they're looking for and not get bogged down in the details of that so that you have time for the details in the procurement process. So that becomes something that I think you get better and better at. And then when you get confident at that, what happened for me is I started selling that process in my alignment calls in a way, or in my discovery calls in a way that was like, don't worry too much about the concept, it's very top line. It'll just inform if we want cooler tones or warmer earthy tones. And I'm actually gonna get a sense of the direction that we're going in. But nothing in the concept is really relevant to the end design and that gave me the permission. To whack together some concepts in a way that was like, still looked really visually pleasing, but I was no longer like trying to find the right mug to put on the side table to make that like lifestyle feeling. Yeah. When it was all going straight in the, digital bin anyway. Yeah. But doesn't mean I didn't do it for honestly two years. Yeah. I'm not trying to act like it was something I just one day identified it. It's a growth process. That's why, and that's why I think like the framework is fantastic for just giving you some stuff, but you still have to make the, you still have to feel the failures and you have to learn the lessons and you have to do all that stuff yourself because it, you'll never truly learn anything or grow in any way. If you just look at. Example of somebody else's learnings and failures and stuff. You've gotta, you just watch people going out, then you're like, Ooh, that one's gonna burn. Like that invoice is really under charge, but I want you to do it. Yeah. So you can never do it again. Exactly. So then we can do postmortem and a reflection. And I can say, you know what, when I said that was a minimum, five figures, I meant it$10,000 is not outrageous in the interior design industry and they've just done a whole house renovation for two and a half grand. How does that feel to you? Because I tell you, it feels to me, yeah, it feels like a bucket of tears. I don't

Speaker 4:

want, I don't

Speaker 2:

want

Speaker 4:

anything to

Speaker 2:

do with that. But if they're saying that it looked hectic when I ran the numbers, so I took$5,000 discount off I don't know. It's sometimes it, I will always firmly push back, but I will also let you fall and fail because you won't learn without it. And it's just silly for me to be like no, just trust me.'cause no one was doing that for me either. It doesn't mean that isn't a reason why I would do it, but I feel like. So now you know exactly the bits to push and the bits to release. Like to actually let people learn because yeah. It's so important I think.

Speaker 3:

Definitely. I don't think if anybody had said to me at the start of the process, this is what you need to do and this is how much time you need to allocate and don't stress too much about the first concept that you send out. I would've just been like yeah, okay. But that's what I'm doing. Yes,

Speaker 2:

exactly. And that's the other thing I would spend all my day banging my head against a wall trying to tell people to send, to do it this way or send the invoice that way and they're determined. If I had a dollar for every onboarding framework call that I had where somebody explained to me, I feel like I shouldn't even say this out loud on the podcast, but when somebody explained to me how they were going to be the niche and the difference that brings interior design to everybody in an affordable way. I would not need the framework. I would just be doing it. I could just sit here and let people pitch to me day in and day out, how they're going to change the entire industry because they're going after a subset or an ideal client that is, our Kmart moms or yeah. For want of not offending any large, socioeconomic level. But I do think eventually it comes to light that it is more of a luxury service. And it actually, the reality is how many hours it actually takes me to deliver this thing. I can't sustain a business when I'm only charging you$62. Yeah. Which is like a digital download ebook kind of price for a complete deliverable service. And so we've very soon learned that's probably not the case. But it doesn't mean I don't sit through those calls all the time and think, okay show me then if you're gonna be the revolution in the industry, come and prove me wrong. I hope somebody does one day. Because I do think having a fire in your belly if for being really passionate about what you wanna do, and when people naysay you or look at you with that patronizing look, that's ah-ha. Sure. Then that is fantastic cure for actually going out there and using it to drive your success. Yeah. It's just that the formula of making interior design as a service super affordable, doesn't fit with the deliverables. It actually just damages the person running that business. Like they're the one that's burned out. They're. Paying the deficit. Basically, the client pays underpays.

Speaker 5:

They

Speaker 2:

overdeliver and the deficit sits on their health, on their sanity, on their family. And I speak it from experience. Yeah. I'm not throwing in shade, I promise you out there. I'm definitely going, ah the journey of Ana Finch, this is basically year one and two out loud in a podcast, but in like me able to look back instead of, being the person on the other end.

Speaker 3:

Definitely. And I think it only takes you a couple of clients to realize those learnings. You're like, oh, okay. Let's have a look at the hours that I spent on this project. Oh, it also, where's the financial

Speaker 2:

contingency for a major error? You collected$62. Then they said to you the sofa, it's throwing a gray and not a blue and we don't really want it. And it was a five and half thousand dollars sofa that you also didn't put trade pricing to, so then you're like, I have$62 buffer, which wouldn't even pay for the shipping to get that couch back to me. So I think people forget that there's like a lot more when we go into and talk about profitability in our pricing, there's a reason there is a buffer in there. It's not just about income, it's also about security. And it's also about feeling like you're running a business and not a charity.

Speaker 3:

A hundred percent.

Speaker 2:

Is there any piece of advice? I've seen a trend lately and I'm not doing it. I'm just saying, have you seen that TikTok and Instagram trend of I had a coffee with my younger self. Oh, I saw this

Speaker 3:

yesterday. She is a

Speaker 2:

hot mess. And apparently I'm supposed to not be, I'm not doing it because I'm like, babe, same. Look. Look,

Speaker 4:

we're both late. One that, I feel like it's just, yeah, a di a different flavor of hot mess for different reasons.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And there's kids involved in them. Other than that, it's not much different. It's just the same thing. I don't know how young you're supposed to go to get that big description. I was gonna

Speaker 3:

say how much younger you supposed to go. Like I feel

Speaker 2:

like I wanna go back to like little kid and be like, Hey, you know when you thought you grew up and that meant you could eat ice cream at eight 30 at night and that would just be like the most amazing part of being an adult. It's just so not like that. Not only do I not eat ice cream, even though I can eat ice cream every night at eight 30, but cost of living just stay where you are. You can't afford ice cream over here. Don't come.

Speaker 3:

There's no ice cream in the future. You can't afford it.

Speaker 2:

But in saying that, my point was going to be around, is there something that you a piece of advice that you wish you could go and give yourself at the very beginning? You're still, in the beginning stages, but what would you look back and even look 12 months ago and just say,

Speaker 3:

I think my biggest thing that I would've said is to not compare myself to other people and to not try and fit into a box. Yeah. I think we spoke before about design school having a certain sort of aesthetic, I think leaving the course. And it was no fault of the course itself. It was, I think it was purely just more seeing past students on Instagram and seeing what they were doing. Again, their aesthetic the types of things that they were doing outside of their business, the type of things that they were doing inside their business. I think it just took me a minute to realize that it was okay that wasn't me. And I think the biggest part of, what I wanna be building my business on is that ethos that, design is accessible and it can be fun and it doesn't have to be intimidating. And I think I would like to go back and just say to myself, you're building your business on authenticity. You don't need to be leaving the course and doing X, y, z, the same as everybody else has. There's definitely still weeks now that I turn Instagram off a little bit and if I'm having a little bit of a lull or I'm just like not feeling like the creative juice is flowing that week, I get a little bit bogged down on, oh, this person is doing great things and oh look, they're going and doing that. And yeah, I definitely think you get caught into that. Cycle of comparison. And that's, yeah. I found that if I was really conscious of that and stepped away from that sometimes it was, yeah. It made what I was doing a lot clearer. Yeah. If that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. A hundred. So I,

Speaker 3:

yeah,

Speaker 2:

it's definitely something that is an evolution too. Like it still shows up as you go through and it's really nice to be able, like even sometimes just taking the 10 minutes to think about that other person's life stage and skills and what's around them. Because often you'll be like,

Speaker 3:

yeah,

Speaker 2:

oh yeah, they don't have kids. Yeah. Or oh yeah, she's 22 years younger than me. Yeah. And I was like ferociously ambitious in my twenties in corporate at STA. And if I look at her and I look at me, Hey babes, let's meet for a coffee like you are me and I, but I'm looking at it through the lens of a 40-year-old now, or in my forties. I'd like to say a 40-year-old. That'd be great. And it's different and it's not. Gonna go back to there ever. So why would I wanna strive to reverse what all the wisdom that I've gained, all the things that I've known, all the ways that I know how to design success now and what that looks like for me. It's a backward step to chase after what they're going for. Yeah. And I think we've just forget that because we just get this little snapshot on Instagram or this little thing of oh, they've won an award, or they've been nominated for this thing, or they're on a podcast or they're doing a thing. And it's but when I think about it, I think, oh, I don't want the award. I'd be horrified standing up on stage like that. Or I don't wanna be on that po. So yeah, I've had to do a lot of similar work and I actually,'cause I have my own business coach. And I was working with her once about a year ago and just having some issues around feeling too close in my lane to somebody else's lane, like having the same ideal clients and then just feeling too close to same content, topic, same things. And I don't follow any other business coaches in the interior design industry really. There's a couple that we like, support each other well, but mostly I have unfollowed things for the sake of. Being authentic. Staying true to myself. Yeah. Because I find out if I've posted it, I haven't seen it anywhere. It's just something that's relevant to my audience. And when I was working with her, the best piece of advice that I, it's one of the best business pieces of advices that I've received, is she made me write a master list of really big, scary shit Yeah. To do in my business. So maybe pitch myself to a US Design podcast, for example, or do something like really scary stuff that I'm like, yeah. And then if I found myself in a place where I was having any issues around. Any of that stuff, then I would just be able to say, okay if this is coming up for me, the action to that is to propel my business forward and tick off something on the scary master list. So it's like unfollowing and un looking and not wasting time on negative energy stuff, but propelling yourself forward in a positive way as well, which is, yeah, it's hard to talk about on the podcast'cause it's not so much comparisonitis as copying and every time she does something, then I jump over and do something positive. If there's something that is bringing a negative energy, I can flip it and I can use it towards a positive action. Yeah. So it's rather than sit here and stew on Instagram for a week and a half, and the other thing is, there's a lot to be said for unfollowing people in the industry. You are not doing their Instagram account any good because you're not a potential client. So you're blocking, you're affecting their engagement and or you're doing other things. Yeah. It's not always the best. So sometimes what we find when we're in design school or like studying design is that you go on this savage blanket follow of everyone to do with the interior design industry. Yeah. And then you come out to run a business and you never actually cull that down so that you're actually overexposed. Yeah. Which is not a good thing when it comes to staying creatively authentic to oh yeah.'cause I've seen her do a full curtain wall behind the bedhead and I like that. And then I saw this and like maybe this, have a different. Ideal client now, and they are interior designers, so it's fine for me to follow a lot of them. But when I was running my design and my business was purely offering design, I unfollowed so many designers. Yeah. They didn't make me feel good or they like influenced my creativity. Actually didn't find it a positive thing. Yeah. It's a really hard decision though because the social side that we spoke about in the middle of the podcast means that Exactly. They are also really supportive of the things that I put forward and I have great chats in my dms. It's not to say there's a right or a wrong way, but I think it's great the approach that you have that every now and again, there's a week where I take the app off my phone, for example. Yeah. Or like I can only access it on my PC in work hours. Yeah. For the purpose of posting or doing my marketing strategy. But yeah, thinking about if you need to take breaks. Yeah. Have you taken a solid social media break from your branding since you launched?

Speaker 3:

Yes. I think over the school holidays I think I looked at Instagram maybe three times. Yeah, it was, we were so busy as it was and having both girls at home we'd gone away for a week, away with family to yeah, Andrew Side's beach house. Like there, there was a lot going on. I didn't have time to sit there and post something. The only time I got on there was to post something over New Year's, and my sister-in-law can contest to this. I spent about two hours on a banana lounge trying to pull all these photos together to get this post going. And I didn't enjoy it at all because I just had it in my mind that I'm like, I need to post something. Everyone else I need to

Speaker 2:

have you. What is that? I need that. Vocal thing that they and with that 2025, like if everyone doesn't have a montage

Speaker 4:

to that's a wrap, then you're obviously not a real person.

Speaker 3:

That's it. And I didn't even have the energy to put a caption together. I think I just put it through a couple of tags in there. Yeah. It was just like, love notes to the year past and I was just, yeah. So I think I do find it really hard when I'm not in this sort of office environment that I've created here, for my six hours a day. If I'm not in that environment, it's really hard for me to switch between being mom and putting the business hat on. And again, that's just personal to me. And I don't know if it's because that's something that I'm striving for and I really want that differentiation between the two. But yeah, I do find it really, I. Maybe overwhelming a bit if I'm like out in family or social settings and then I'm getting some like dings on Instagram. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, I've gotta reply to that. Or, yeah. It I think it's good to have breaks. So definitely over the Christmas break, the last two years I've taken big breaks, like probably four or five weeks. Which then I feel like it does, you come back a lot more refreshed. And I came back this year with about 10,000 ideas.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh. I came back.

Speaker 2:

Screenshots

Speaker 3:

more,

Speaker 2:

if you mute the people that you know are possibly not positively affecting your day to day, it is so incredible. Like it was September, 2022, I unfollowed. All the people in that interior design mentor industry. Yeah. And unfollowed so many business coaches, like just that I had followed over the years for business tips and tricks and because I'm clearly, as someone who teaches, I'm interested in business strategy and marketing and all that sort of stuff, but I unfollowed all of them. And my marketing content strategy for 12 months wrote itself. Like I just had all these ideas. I had space to think about what I thought about the strategies. Yeah. Yeah.'cause before that, every time I went to share something that I've learned in 15 years of business, like of my past. Business career. Every time I went to she it, I was like, oh no. Two days ago I saw this seven figure coach talking about that same thing. And it's I wasn't claiming to own it. I was claiming to talk about what time blocking looks like for me and how it can work with your brain, even if you're neurodiverse. It doesn't have to look the same way for everybody. And I'd have this like idea to do that, and then I'd be like, no, someone said time blocking. I saw it. It's of course. Yeah. So it was so nice to hold that get rid of everyone. Yeah. I still, I've gone back and, there'd be less than five people in that space that I currently follow. Yeah. And I no longer listen to just, when I launched the podcast last year, I don't listen to design podcasts anymore. I used to, yeah, love them because of the industry, obviously. And like I loved everything about them, but as someone, I find it. For me specifically, it feels irresponsible to go out and listen to other people's conversations about it because it can't help but create bias. It can't help but influence my ideas. Yeah, and so I haven't listened to my favorite podcast for a year and a half so that I can bring you this podcast and, but just know that then it just feels. Way more aligned than what? I'm way happier in that I show up and I share content that feels I think you need to know, instead of worrying all the time that someone's gonna think I was piggybacking off their ideas. I'm just like, now I'm so in my lane. I'm like, disgustingly like. Blind to everything else that's happening. I'm like, oh, sorry, I don't listen. And then I feel bad when I meet other podcast hosts or it's not them. It's not because, I saw Brie and Lauren launched their podcast for interior designers and I, Lauren is one that I talk to that I follow, that I've had a relationship on Instagram with for a long time and I wish them so well. And I think that podcast would be really bloody good. But I don't listen because I'm also like conscious. For example, we had the same guest. I don't know their guest schedules. They don't know my guest schedule. Yeah. We had the same guest come out in the same way.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Complete coincidences because that is a person who we think the industry wants to hear from. That is a voice in the industry that we think has something to say. Yeah. And imagine if you did listen to that interview and then you went to interview that same guest, you would just literally be like saying the same topics and like not coming at it from your own perspective. Yeah. So I think it's a good example of showing if you do. Step away and nothing happens to your Instagram like that whole summer holiday? No, it actually just reboots engagement. People are like, oh, welcome back. Or like they're excited to see stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I think just like reducing that noise, you don't realize how much noise there is until you step away from it a little bit. And it does just help you, as you just said, to stay in your lane to keep your authenticity, at its peak. You're not second guessing yourself and, oh, I shouldn't put up a, oh, everyone's doing mood board Mondays. Maybe I shouldn't do Mood Board Monday. Oh, the one that, you know, so and so put up last week is a little bit like the one I was planning on posting this week. Yeah. Maybe I'll put it off for a bit and it's just, yeah, it just slows you down a little bit. So I do feel bad sometimes that I don't engage with people as much as what I think people engage with me sometimes on the platform. But I think for me, and the way my personality works and the way my mind works, I think to step back from it, it's definitely been very beneficial.

Speaker 2:

I've always said that when I am chatting to the girls in the framework, it's like, if you get a comment from me, it is like as rare as he and I bloody love that mood board. If I show up and say I'm obsessed with it, I am literally wanting to live inside of that mood board because I have so many shit I couldn't possibly get around on marketing Mon on mood board Monday with everybody. Oh, ex framework, current framework and say something good about their mood boards. Like my whole job would just be, engage them. I gonna say that

Speaker:

would be your

Speaker 2:

fulltime job. So if I show up and I've seen something and I say something about it, and I've always been particularly bad, not I say bad, I be kind to myself. I also have had little babies and lots of things and have very much done the same thing as you. I don't want to just be sitting and saying for the sake of saying, oh, stunning. Oh, where's that from? That's, yeah. Disingenuous to me. Yeah. But when I show up and I do a lot of conversations in the dms, you'll notice even the way that I use my Instagram, you can see what I'm doing every day, all day if you watch me on stories. Yeah. But I no longer post that often unless I've got something critical that I think is very helpful. Yeah. Because I just don't have the energy and the place to show up for that yet. I'm hoping this year it's like changing and I'm getting back to it, but last year I didn't Definitely, yeah. So that had to be off, off limits and so yeah, I definitely feel like I'm having the conversations in the dms. I feel engaged. I feel like I chat to a lot of people in there, but I don't go around and I certainly don't subscribe to 10 minutes comments before you post 10 minutes liking things after you know all those gurus and rules, social media gurus get in the bin. Like it changes so much for me. I'm like, if I. If I truly show up and it's from a place of always my ideal client in my mind and with the perspective of always wanting to support and help them, the rest is absolutely just gonna fall into place. Like I don't actually have to try to manipulate or out strategize people. I actually just wanna help run a business. Like I don't feel like I have to get tricky with them. Yeah. I don't have to chase them down. They'll find me like it's fine. I would just probably end with what's next for you and your business on this same trajectory this year. Have you got any major focuses or goals around setting up workflows, processes, foundations, software? What's the kind of theme of the year for you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Lots of things this year that I wanna accomplish. As I mentioned before, I feel like I just I just was straight out of the gates when I finished school. There was no breathing space to say, okay, I really wanna set this up. There's a lot of things on my list that I wanna really refine and review over the next month, which isn't very exciting, but exciting for me.

Speaker 2:

Not sexy, but systemizing your business Yes. Is absolutely critical. I love that. Hey, systems are sexy. Yes. Don't buy me that t-shirt for Christmas. Yes. By the way, I feel like already if it wasn't some sort of AI thing that I'm just gonna get some robot or like a picture of Clancy that says, my systems are sexy.

Speaker:

Can you buy me that for Christmas? I.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, definitely getting some systems back into place. I think honing in on my ideal client because there were, like, I had so many different clients last year, which was really fantastic. But I think that's helped to give me a little bit of clarity about what kind of designing I really wanna hone into. This year and to take your word, I'm always saying, what lights me up? What do I wanna be doing? So that's something that I really wanna focus on this year. In regards to, you mentioned software. I definitely want to sketch up with something that I really wanted to learn more about last year which was put on the back burner. But it's something that I wanna look into again this year. I'm a little bit of a dinosaur when it comes to software because I've been using the Adobe Suite for my entire life. Yeah. And don't like change, so I don't wanna get, no one likes change. No

Speaker 2:

one likes like software changes. No way. Because. Think about how you were on day one of looking at Canva versus how you move around Canva now. Ah. And it's I know every software you're going to have to make time to save time. So you have to go all the way back to a place that feels so uncomfortable and like basically you're signing up to be the new girl at the new school that nobody knows. It doesn't know where the toilets are. That eats lunch in the toilet'cause you can't find the kitchen. That was me on my first day STA head office. I was like, I went into a cupboard room like a, I think it was like the crying cupboard or something. I don't know what it was, but I sat there and ate my lunch'cause I thought there was a door to the kitchen and I was too embarrassed to go back out and tell everybody that I like didn't mean to eat my lunch at the cupboard. So just in there, oh my god, really? And then went back to my desk. Like I totally meant that no one knows. That's the kind of new girl energy that you get when you got a. Look into a software and you actually have to Yeah. Commit to it and think about it. Yeah. And it,

Speaker 3:

and not knowing anything, like I think that's the new gaps that you literally blind. It's so scary. Like for years I've had people coming up to me and asking me, oh, how do I do this in Illustrator? How do I do that? And I always have the answer it. Now the tables have turned and I'm like, how do I turn the thing on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah,

Speaker 3:

why is my square not a square?

Speaker 2:

The beauty of that is the software and the technology and the IT developments means that more and more it's the case that they all start to look as user-friendly as Canberra. Like drag and drop. Yeah. Things that, you, first time you go into Trello, the first time you go into Flighters, like these are all like. Excuse me. What? This is so easy. There's just templates and I just put my info in and of course not all of the software is like that, but I feel like we're in such a blessed place. Like I hate that kickback that I get a lot around AI and yeah, but it's a bit scary. Or yeah, but I'm not very tech savvy, so I can't do, it's if you can send an email, you can use AI to the best of its capacity. You just need someone to talk you through that and really teach you or share one of those AI assistants or like really take you in on a baby level until you feel comfortable and then release you. Yeah. And I think, yeah, I really do hate that pushback all the time where it's like. It feels like weaponizing capability or feeling like constantly giving yourself that negative talk of I can't or I don't Yeah. I don't know what my zero, if you don't understand your accounting cloud software, you could spend 20 minutes with YouTube this afternoon and guess what? You could read your p and l. Yeah, like I just I'm such a solution based coach in terms of I don't accept that mediocracy that we go in and almost, play the victim. It feels like really bad to me and I can be a little bit firm, but fair. But I can definitely be a bit pushy when it comes to that stuff.'cause I'm what's stopping you? How do you get around that is go and learn it. Or just go and do it. But I do think with the software, it's literally because you already know how bad you'll be at the start. You're like, I wanna live that worst life of mine. I wanna live my best life where I just know how to move around. I just know.

Speaker 3:

Yes, hundred percent. But now if only I

Speaker 2:

could just, if I could create an AI assistant that you like. By osmosis. You take in all of the knowledge that they have. And so from the minute you get it, it can be, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Not one of those.

Speaker 2:

I'm an AI know, but I'm beautiful. All right. I'm gonna wrap it up there.'cause all the other questions I have for you are not fit for Podcast Light. I will be talking to you oh. Off mic about all of the other stuff that I really wanna get into. No, thank you for joining me. It's nice to have I love to interview emerging designers and people coming through the industry because I think you see things in a way that is, that we disconnect from. There's somewhere around the third year mark where you just switch into mid. Mid-career designers and you're no longer emerging. Yeah. You're more established and all of that's in your review mirror. So I absolutely love having these conversations because you're right. Living it. And that's like the best time to hear about what's happening on the ground from our emerging correspondence. I'm gonna pop all the links to your Instagram, to the website, to anything in the show notes. So for anyone who's listening along who wants to come and check out Catherine's work, you can go to the show notes and follow along there. And I will catch up with you immediately after this podcast.

Speaker 3:

Amazing. Thanks for having me, Marianne.

Speaker 2:

No worries. Bye for now.

Speaker:

See you. Bye

bye.

Speaker 8:

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've 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. Just like you for your daily dose of design business tips, and to get a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes, follow at Oleander and 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.

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Rhiannon Lee

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