More Clients with less content - what's actually working in 2025

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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 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. It's the end of the financial year. And of course I could have done this episode on all things finances, but when I think about return on investment and where I'm investing time, energy funds, all the sorts of things, the more designers I speak to, the more I feel as though they are very good at streamlining their subscriptions and being protective about their investments and finding out, what's the return for that money? What am I gonna get? Is it worth it? Do I wanna invest? Do I wanna invest my time in this course? Do I wanna do this, that, and the other? So financially, I feel like we're very savvy and then I feel like nobody is talking about the pink elephant in the room. That the digital marketing landscape has completely changed. We're not in 2022 anymore. Instagram is not the golden goose. I think there are so many platforms that are performing so much more for interior designers and actually generating leads a conversation I had twice this week with clients was, okay tell me when the last person dropped into your dms that resulted in a financial conversion for you. Like they booked you for something and one of them was over 12 months ago, and she's still busting her butt to try to show up on Instagram three to five times a week. It's just not worth it. You would just never do that for that kind of return. And I just think there are so many other ways I feel like it's shifting in such an obvious way and everyone's quite whoa. There's global uncertainty. The clients that I'm working with the most are interior designers, established designers who've played the Instagram game in their early years, and now they're just so tired. They are so tired of it. They're tired of the changes, they're tired of the expectations, and they, it's the same content. And now because of ai, content creation has become much easier. But with that ease. Comes accessibility. So you have voices that maybe weren't as loud previously because they didn't wanna go through the energy and effort of actually creating something and now showing up daily, for example, which is a problem. And I guess that shift is because everybody is seeing everything online and it's. Not just because AI can now let you walk through your own 3D renders for a client or for a piece of content or speak directly to camera. I can be reading a note and filming myself, and then I can just press one button on my podcast editing software and it says eyes to camera, and it means that I'm looking deadpan down the camera instead of every which way else. So I can literally read something and then be looking straight ahead, which is incredible. There's all sorts of things like that. There's no. Denying that the landscape is shifting and and there's so much else going on in the world, I'm not even gonna touch on it, but there's war, there's genocide, there's climate change, there's everything, and it is all a lot, all at once. And this AI disruption, we are on the precipice of a technology revolution and things are happening fast, and I think it's causing a very real craving for human connection. We've said this over and over, humanizing your brand and it's never been more important. But a, just think that your audience is now deciding who to trust faster and more savvy. Like they're really getting in there. And so there's not really a place for, I don't really wanna show up on my stories, I just feel a bit ick about it, or I just want it to look really polished and professional. It's not about me, it's about the brand. I just wanna like post that and walk away in the other direction. I don't want anyone to know, and I just don't think that's working. I think 2025 is calling for a completely different approach. One that's about community and connection and all of those buzzwords, but I know I would be putting my time and energy if I wanted better leads, faster trust, and less mucking around, I would be looking at a. Big shift in my digital strategy to match the big shift in the digital landscape. So today I am gonna talk about it and talk about the ping elephant in the room and what's going on with Instagram and what's really working and what's not. So we know that technology has changed and it's changing in such a fast way. AI builds walkthroughs, it's. Doing rendering mid journey I just saw this week. You can create yourself walking through your 3D renders very quickly. There's amazing things going on, but I think the biggest shift I wanna talk about,'cause last week was all about fun things that AI is doing, and this week I really wanna talk about the shift in your consumer or your client, your ideal client and what they're looking for because the shift is emotional and psychological, and it's really got a lot to do with how we consume. We are now in an era where we're just not gonna believe anything that we see because we can't, because it can all be generated, right? So we're automatically like, hang on a second, is this a scam? Is this a real person? Like even if you show up on camera, you can have an AI avatar. I could be an AI avatar. I say this in my calls all the time, like I know exactly how to do it. You don't even know if I'm here or not. I could have built myself as a coaching bot and I could be showing up running these courses. I promise I'm not doing that. I would be very transparent if I were, but things are happening fast and trust is being hemorrhaged. People are checking, do I trust you? Do I know what you stand for? Do I stand for what you stand for? Would I want you in my house for six months during a Reno? What do you even look like? they just don't know enough about you to invite you in. So people are craving certainty and reassurance. They really wanna know that. Oh, okay, she seems nice, or, yeah, I could have her over, or I trust her to actually know the difference between a warm and cool undertone. Let's be clear though, you are not bad at marketing. This is not like a shame podcast. It's not me saying you are not doing a good job. I just feel like we're a bit over invested in multiple platforms that we don't need to be, and I think that we're not really doing that really strategic audit often enough to be like, let's be honest with ourselves. Do we need to be on Instagram this much? If we start a TikTok account and it's not converting into anything, I don't know how long you've had it or whatnot, but are we spending a little bit more time? Watching TikTok, then we are creating them. Like it's really important that we stay. Aware of where we have time leakages in our business as well. So you only have a certain amount of hours as you are well aware to be the Swiss Army knife and do all of the things. Is social media taking over the lion's share or like a huge chunk of that pie where it shouldn't be? And are you possibly would your time be spent better spent? Two hours a week, going out to showrooms, going out to suppliers, going and meeting up with a fully aligned business and saying, what opportunities does my business have to support yours and how can you do the same for me? Just spending two hours doing that is it's two hours way better spent than on TikTok. If you got out and about in your dream postcode, like where your ideal client is that you really wanna work for one morning a week, that would move the needle 100 times more than showing up in your stories once a day for that week. Just will you will 100% get an outcome that. Results in payment, profitability and real personal connection over just showing up on Insta Stories. If I had my time again and I had to start from scratch, I would spend so much less time trying to hack the Instagram algorithm or like wondering if I'm shadow band or wondering why no one wants to follow me, or stressing that I don't have a thousand followers. I only have a hundred followers or 10 followers. Like all of that stress and anxiety. I would not give that a second thought. If I was starting again, I would be spending so much more time making my website an absolute conversion king. I would be like, okay, I'm gonna get this to a place where you find yourself on my website and you're like, oh my God, I've come home. I'm on the corner of the internet. I was always meant to be on and. Take my money, add to cart, all the things. I have to work with this business coach. I have to be in and around her world. That's what I want my website to do. I'm in the middle of rebranding and re redoing my website. So obviously that's a little bit playing on my mind, but it's also what I. My coaching advice would be like putting time and energy into your website is gonna pay off tenfold, down the line much more than like a beautiful carousel where people were swiping past by the second carousel slide and like you wasted so much of your time. So I would make sure that your website homepage is just, feels like a sucker punch to your ideal client. Like you get there and you're like. Yes, this is where I need to be. She knows me. This is right. I would want my services written exactly like a solution, not like a list, but okay, cool. I know you and I used to be you and I know how to support you into the next stage. So services, solutions, not a list, not inclusions. How does it make you feel? Where are we gonna be after six months of working together on this project? What will you have gained? Why will you be like, my God, where have you been in my life? And then the about page, people always, I think, throw this together on chat, GBT or don't really think about it. I paid a copywriter for my about page and I always would time and time again'cause I struggle to write about myself. I find it really awkward and ick and I think lots of people do and chat. GBT just doesn't. Cut it in terms of copy that doesn't connect. That's not about relationships and community and connection and humanity. That is chat, GBT copy. So it's not gonna work. The about page is the number one most visited page on any website. It's where people always wanna go. That and that tells you everything that you need to know about today's podcast episode. People just want to know about you. They wanna know. They're doing their due diligence and their deep research on you. And if you just think about the way you buy anything, you do exactly the same. You've gotta go and just like spy on people for a bit and make sure you feel comfortable giving them a whole bunch of your cash. And then to zoom out like one level of lens to that, how are you gonna get people to the website in the first place? So that's where my strategies would be like, am I interested in paid Google ads? Can I look at Pinterest, SEO, and just pointing everything to my website so it'll drive traffic directly to opt-ins. If it's case studies, if it's blogs, if it's mood boards, whatever I share on Pinterest, taking you back off Pinterest.'cause Pinterest loves to drop people onto your website. So make advantage of that. Take advantage of that at local QR codes, signage, packaging, site boards, business cards, flyers everywhere. With a QR code, every homeware store that I can connect with and meet the manager or whatnot has an acrylic frame at their cash register counter with my design services and the QR code so that they can come locally, work with me, I can meet them at their house, I can be there at two o'clock. That is just great and that. Doesn't take much. It just takes you going in and saying, Hey, I'm actually, I could walk here from my house. And I love the store. I love what you do with it. I love specifying the items out of it. Is there any chance that we can have a chat about trialing for two months or whatnot, this sitting up there and if it's working well, we can. Talk about whatever that looks like in the future. Like you could rent that space. How much can it cost? Not much, surely. And I'd be blogging with intent, so blogging on my website. Look, I think that the SEO landscape is also changing, so this is only really about digital marketing, and so I'm not gonna talk to SEO too much, but it's still very. It's still a very valid thing to do, and it's much easier to be blogging with the support of the likes of Claude or Chad, GBT or whoever you're using, or Edie, my custom GPT bot that's like laser sharp on your voice, but I think you get the picture. People are really craving connection. Community humanized brands. They want to show up. I'll give you a little example. This week I've posted a whole bunch of content. I'm just trying out a few different things. Something I posted yesterday, meh, it got okay response. Maybe three comments, nothing outrageous. And then today I shared a more personal story of being blocked by somebody that I just. I didn't expect to be blocked by it, and I shared it as a coaching moment to be like, Hey, do you know what? At the end of the day, you can't control how other people behave, and she might have needed to block me for whatever reason, and I respect that everybody's allowed to curate their digital space into something that serves them or makes them better or gives them energy. If I was bothering her in any way, it's totally fine that she blocked me. But sharing something like that, my dms were flooded with. Situa similar situations, people who've been overthinking this sort of thing, or worrying or concerned. So by, I was a little nervous to post that because I didn't want it to come across as though I was posting that and having a go at that person.'cause that was not entirely the message of the post at all. It showed me straight away that connection is shifting completely. And the more raw and honest and vulnerable you can be in this space, the more likely you are going to get engagement and connection on the Instagram platform. Now, I was also speaking to another coaching client just today and she was saying, look, I don't know what's holding me back, but I feel like I want things to feel perfect or be perfect. She's in her first year of business, and of course we don't just wanna show up in stories, relaxed and relatable. It's taken me seven years to get to a point where I'm exactly the same person on my podcast, on my stories, in my coaching across omnichannel, human. And I am just the human that you're gonna get. And that's because it was really tough to be the professional that maybe I'm not, to try on. I hat of the designers I thought you wanted to have. And it turned out I got way more clients when my clients didn't feel intimidated by my professionalism and in fact wanted to work with me.'cause I was so passionate about us mutually getting that outcome for them. So it worked in my favor. So lately I've been coaching people to really assess Instagram's return on investment. And I've been saying this on the podcast for a long time, I've been really saying to them, okay, let's talk about the platforms. What can we become a thought leader on LinkedIn? What will that do for your business? What can we do in the local marketing space? Is there any amazing opportunities out there that we've got while we're sitting squirreled away in our studio all the time on Sketch up or looking at samples? We could take three hours a week to get out and about and meet up with people and see how can my business support yours? How can your business support mine? Meet actual people? Get actual opportunities. It's about not waiting for opportunities, but creating opportunities. And today's episode is really going to look at that digital marketing space and what is happening, what is the big shift online, and what's working right now in 2025, and where should you be putting your energy for the second half of the year? I think Zuckerberg's probably quite worried about what's ahead. Can you imagine a worldwide chat? GPT who has 5 million worldwide users, has a chat functionality. Chat to chat. I better not be in charge of the marketing campaign or naming of the chatty chat chat. But once that happens, we're all connected in a digital way, and I think there's a lot of changes afoot and different things that will come into place like making your. If you made your Squarespace site during lockdown and you haven't really fiddled around with it, you know it might really be time for a digital overhaul. That might be where your time is well and truly best spent, because it's the most likely to bring you a conversion and a client. The other lens that I often talk about and that I. Always try to practice is the client lens and making sure that you're looking everything from the perspective of a potential client. If you post, why work with an interior designer and your client's sitting in their home in, I'll use my own town, sitting in Riles Creek at home thinking, oh gosh, I don't know what to do with that. Like huge white wall. I don't know what we could do or. That's a tricky space or that's a blah, blah, blah. Don't you think they'd rather see a content that's Hey, you're not alone if this stuff puzzles you. That's why we went to university, or that's why we studied it, because we wanted to actually know what are the options for that giant wall, and I'm here to help you work that out for yourselves. I'm much rather read that than another. This is why you should pay me post. I don't think that works so much in Instagram or. Online in the digital space anymore. So today's episode, I wanna really talk about strategic intentional presence online because visibility is not just showing up, it's people actually seeing the you behind your brand and going, I would really like to work with her. And we're talking about the kind of work where you are the trusted voice to say, yes, those undertones work, lock it in and spend six figures on these choices. Or you are the voice. Oh, you're the person that they're gonna meet at the front door and say, come inside our house. That's a super intimate relationship, and I'm gonna tell you, like most of, a lot of people feel guilt and shortcomings when they just don't know what to do with a space. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff in the background that is more than just, just gonna Google that and call someone and get them over if there's a possibility that you could get to know them online or do some. Further digging or research again with the client lens, how do you consume things? You don't need a service provider and you just Google it and pay them and book it online. You do a bit of research, you look at reviews, you look at other people's experiences, so that's how your clients are showing up and exploring you digitally as well. I know I've mentioned the AI shift and the things that are happening, but I think that it is important to continue to understand that AI generated content is flooding the market. People are craving real. I feel like there's going to come a time soon where I'm gonna go, even though I've made these amazing customer assistance and I edit them a lot. So I feel confident in the way that I use ai, but I know that people are not editing them and just posting things. And I'm gonna go back to just my. Terrible spelling and like what a vibe kind of thing soon because they probably get more engagement.'cause people can see, oh yeah, she's busy, she's just throwing something up. I don't know, I'm just hypothesizing. But I think AI generated content is absolutely saturating The Instagram landscapes. Specifically, so we know, I just mentioned clients are Googling us. Absolutely. They're finding your website, they're watching how you show up. They wanna know who you are and not just what you charge. If you've got an investment guide and it doesn't have a little bit about your brand philosophies and who you are, it doesn't have to be super professional. It can just be, hi, I Amon. I love musical theater. I'm obsessed with everything to do with interiors. My secret party skill is that I can spot your paint color and name your paint color digitally on a Zoom call because that is my little party trick. I can speak to people on Zoom and be like, oh yeah, so it's currently hogs bristle, and they're like, ah, how do you know that? It's I just know that I can tell, I can see, I see digital colors differently. I think that's why E-Sign has always been something I've gravitated towards. I can't explain it. I don't know why. I just, I can, I. Maybe I can just take the computer filters off in my eyeballs. I have no idea. But the thing is, they don't, they want to know who you are, not just what you charge. And that is absolutely true. People are really craving people. Community is gonna become like the hottest commodity. I swear. I just feel like everyone's gonna be like, okay, we've got more time because we've handed a lot of tasks over to AI agents. We've got all this extra time that we're not doing it. Let's get out and kick the footy. Let's get out and help someone. Let's get out and do something or meet up or have lunch or do a picnic. I think this is, and I hope going to fix that problem where everyone has just been on their computers. You heard it here first, right? I'm not gonna make predictions. Maybe we just love AI so much that we stay on the computers longer. I don't know. I'm just saying. In my mind, I feel like this shift is making people actively seek out personal connections and want to hire someone, do an in-person job. So where are we wasting our time? Right now, I feel like I'm just like getting all up and in Instagram's grill, but I think you're wasting time, pouring hours into. Any platform that isn't delivering leads. My second waste of time right now is putting a lot of effort into platforms like Instagram, but not showing your face or sharing an opinion or a judgment or any sort of point of view. I think people, again, AI will just. AI can spit out that generalized content every day of the week. I need you to step up and say here are, we need content that AI is not generating. Things like, the last two clients I met with had both had the exact same fears. They were worried that they didn't know their style or they couldn't articulate it, and I was like, that's fine. You've hired a professional and my job is to extract that information. So I have heaps of questions, know what I'm doing, I can show you some examples, and trust me, you'll know what you don't like, and eventually we will find your pocket of what it is that we're trying to achieve. So you do not have to come to the call with. The language of design, you do not have to articulate what your style is. We'll find it together. So that's a piece of content that you could share that really, that's an opinion that is showing my face, but that is not a controversial opinion. That's not me showing up and being like I can't work with you if you like Boucle because it's overdone trend. That's none of that. I don't think it's nasty. I don't think it's weird. It's just showing that I really care and I want you to know this so that you're not worried when it's time for us to meet. Okay. And the last place that I think a lot of designers that I'm chatting to are wasting their time right now is sitting back and waiting for referrals.'cause word of mouth and referrals can only take you so far. And I say this with all the love in the world because I am still running a business. I have the design side of my business. I have not marketed for two years on word of mouth and referrals. But I only take one client at a time, and I only need one client at a time. If I were running a, hopefully fully successful booked out design business only with design clients. I would never let that just be word of mouth and referrals. At least all the word of mouth and referrals are welcome, but that is not my business plan. I think that's where we get that feast and famine thing where it's like you run out of, people aren't talking about design or your name hasn't come up in the right rooms recently, and then you're like, ah, and you quickly go to market and it's a bit late. So I would not be wasting my time sitting back waiting. What did I say before about opportunity? We've gotta create it, not wait for it. Okay. But obviously I'm not gonna come to you with this is what you're wasting your time on and not talk to you about what you could do instead. The biggest opportunities out there for interior designers have to be like LinkedIn people aren't doing it or not doing it right Pinterest, because, ah, I cannot say it anymore. How much Pinterest is actually gonna drive a much greater result for you in the future than anything you're doing right now on Instagram podcast guessings. Thinking not podcasts for other interior designers. Think about your ideal client, like when you really do the deep work with Bennett or any of my other AI tools and you really understand that client and you go into the psychographics and demographics and you know where they are. Like what do they do on a Saturday morning? They're at Pilates. Okay, wellness. Brilliant. Is there a podcast in that space where I can come and talk about the intersection between wellness and a well-designed home? I can still come on as an interior designer, but I'm not talking to other interior designers. I'm talking directly to my ideal client that is a podcast pair made in heaven. And I think that we're crazy if we're not jumping on those opportunities I've met so many people, I've. Interviewed people. I've listened to so many podcasts and then gone to the show notes, followed that person, bought their product, had them on my podcast, followed along, like really engaged with them. Being a guest on someone's podcast is amazing, so you don't have to be a guest on this podcast. You don't have to pitch inside of your own industry. In fact, my advice as a designer is get think about the last project you did and was there a specific thing there that you thought. Has an intersection or a kind of cross pollination with parts of what your ideal client is interested in. That's how you wanna break the exact example that I gave you with the wellness space and the intersection with interior design. Or I know some designers who are really good at designing with neurodiversity and inclusion in mind, and then they might wanna go on a parenting podcast. Like Parents are great if they're your ideal clients. Or maybe your ideal client are early nesters. Can you get yourself on like a retirement superannuation money podcast? Like you might feel like that's weird, but actually being able to say these are the top five smart investment choices as a professional designer that I would say that you should stretch your funding for when you're building a new build. We, I think we get a bit obvious when we think about podcast pitches and we just go, oh yeah, I'll go on one that's interior design or interior real estate, or like it has to be exactly. I think you come off as far more of an expert if you're the only professional designer that's been in and around that topic at all. So that's my little hot tip. Podcast guesting, but think broad, but be very intentional on your ideal client. So who is Sarah, your ideal client, listening to? What's in their earbuds? What do they follow? Whilst you might not get a seat on the couch with Laura and Brit and the, what is their podcast? Unfiltered uncut. I should probably know, or Mama Mia or any of those sort of really big ones. Just think about other topics that have a crossover, and I'm sure you'll find opportunities. Instagram is like marketing collateral now. It's like the flyer that gets people in, but we want them to get to your website as the main event and stop trying to convert in dms and on Pinterest and on LinkedIn. Don't convert there. Convert on your own turf. Get everyone to come to your website and make sure it's got killer conversion content and it's ready to catch everyone that lands there. That's what I would do differently. Okay. And just sneakily, I know that I've spoken about this before, even just a couple of episodes ago, but I am making some of these changes in my own business, so I'm podcasting, obviously, showing up on Substack. I'm leaning into TikTok a little bit, having a go on there. I'm building tools and systems that help me teach and automate at scale in the backend. I'm preparing my Google Drive for this connection with CHATT PT. So my standard operating procedures, all of the transcripts of all of my coaching calls, all of my podcast episodes, everything that I do and all my individual frameworks that I share with my students is now all built out in my Google Drive. So the second I connect at GBT to Google, she's searching through my own ip, which is. Amazing. Anyway, I'm doing lots of things in the backend but I did wanna just talk about this because I think that I'm really seeing a lot of people saying to me, I'm getting really tired of it. It's burning me out. It's doing this and that, and no wonder we're putting so much energy in without any of the return. So this is your permission slip. To look at it a little bit differently, come and chat to me if you want some ideas, because I bet that there are so many cool things that you could be doing that could get you, like in terms of lead generation, could get you someone who's willing to pay your deposit in less than a week. It's just that we're pointing our attention in the wrong direction. Okay? That's it for me. I'll chat to you next week. 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'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.