Ep. 10: What It Really Takes To Set Up Flat Fees For Interior Design Services with Houston-Based Designer Caron Woolsey

Grab a drink and get ready for the most real talk, spill-the-tea convo, not just about what it takes to set up a flat fee billing system, but also about the reality of leading a team, growing a design firm, saying no, and marketing a small business. 

In this candid conversation, Rebecca sits down with Texas-based designer Caron Woolsey of CW Interiors to unpack the real-world journey from hourly billing to profitable, sanity-saving flat fees. 

Caron shares practical, specific details about how she refined her process, trained her team to track time wisely, and built the courage to say no to clients who weren’t the right fit—all while protecting her joy, her margins, and her time.

If you’re new, listening to this will set you up for success. 

Seasoned? You’ll feel seen plus get tips and encouragement to help you stay the course (or get back on track).  

If you’ve been curious—or terrified—about switching from hourly billing to flat design fees, this episode will give you the clarity, confidence, and kick in the pants you need to make it happen.

Enjoy!

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About Caron:

Caron Woolsey is the founder and principal designer of CW Interiors, a boutique interior design studio based in The Woodlands, Texas. Guided by the philosophy of “fewer, finer,” Caron leads a close-knit team devoted to creating bespoke residential interiors that feel timeless and deeply personal.

Known for her approachable leadership and meticulous attention to detail, Caron partners closely with clients, architects, and artisans to shape homes that reflect the individuality of the people who live in them. Her work spans from large-scale new builds to thoughtful renovations, always marked by cohesive architectural flow, a curated mix of classic and contemporary elements, and a deep respect for craftsmanship.

Caron believes that true luxury comes from intention and authenticity. Through CW Interiors, she continues to inspire clients and collaborators with a vision that celebrates quality, beauty, and the enduring meaning of a well-designed home.

To connect with Caron and CW Interiors:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Website

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Transcript

Rebecca: Today we are here to find out what it takes to transition from hourly billing to value-based pricing in a boutique design firm with Caron Woolsey of CW Interiors out of Houston, Texas. I think it's fair to say she's a fancy designer and not just because she grew up visiting New Orleans and loves Old World French design details, but really because she and her team are all about doing fewer projects and with finer results.  Be sure to stay tuned to the end because while we are going to talk about the pros and cons of hourly billing, I am also excited to find out where she finds the courage to say no to clients who don't fit her fewer finer business model. Whether or not she was always this courageous as an interior design business owner, and how it has actually helped with Thrive in a busy design market like Houston. 

Welcome to the show, Caron. 

Caron: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

Rebecca: When we were first introduced, I was told that you had stopped selling your time and started selling outcomes instead.  Can you tell us what that means to you?  

Caron: Yes. So when you get started, I think that you want to please everybody, and sometimes when you try to please everybody, you please nobody. when you're starting out.  It feels wrong to say “this is the price and this is how it's gonna be,” because you wanna offer the most flexibility possible.  But  I think when you do that,  it's always the elephant in the room that the clock is ticking and you're accruing more and more time, and either one of two things is gonna happen. It's gonna make your client more cognizant of the time that it's taking, and then try to cut things off. Or you, as the designer, are gonna do that, and it's gonna be a stumbling block in getting them their best result.   I used to actually shoot myself in the foot a lot because I would be like…. Okay, so we'll just do it by the hour,  and then I would want to give them the best result, but not be so rude as to charge them for the time. to give them the best results. So then I was just working for free and being like, “don't worry, I'm not charging for this.” After you have your business for a while, you kind of know the metrics of how you work and how things are gonna go. Um, and you get better at reading clients, too. To me just became super obvious. And what I would've enjoyed as a consumer too, is just to know, hey, this is the price. This is the price no matter what.   It just becomes painfully obvious that to just bill by the project is the better way to go for everybody involved.

Rebecca: You've been in business for eight years? How long into your business was it before flat fee pricing really clicked for you? 

Caron: Four years. 

Rebecca: Four years. And what, what did you have to do to create the flat fee pricing? Are we talking about a spreadsheet? Like what did you have to put in place in order to get this right and not lose money? In all the ways one can lose money.

Caron: Right. Absolutely. And, and it's a risk you run. Right. And there have, I would say it hasn't happened much. Maybe two projects where we have lost money because. It just took a lot longer than we thought, but it was really a group effort. We keep a lot of metrics, so I have a great CPA on staff and she, you know, we're always logging all the different hours for every facet of everything we do. And then I have a great design team who works with me as well. And so we all just got around a table and put our heads together and just said, you know, let's go back through the clients. Look at the size of those projects, and how much time did we spend the initial design, the revisions, the ordering, the samples, the presenting, the implementation.

And we just started using that as our metric for quoting new projects to come up with a flat fee. 

Rebecca: Did you have big gaps that you identified over time? And I'm asking this because everything you're saying parallels my experience when I was running. Seriously. Happy Homes. Like as if you're, you were running my company. I know that in part of reviewing our matrix, we were like, oh, we're getting it really right on this area. But we had enough data to see that we were getting it wrong, like say on the revisions or we were getting it wrong on a certain kind of project, like a living room. How fine-grained did you have to make your tracking in order to reveal the gaps? And what gaps did you discover in your journey? 

Caron: Sure, and it's always evolving, but one was final styling because if it's a total gut job in Reno and you just think, oh, that's gonna be the worst part is gonna be when you're in it, you know? And that last part, no big deal, but. Hanging art, you know, it takes a while and unpacking and trash pickup and all of those little things.

That was something that I think in our heads, it's the fun, pretty, oh no big deal stuff that we would just enjoy that. Okay. No, that does take time too. And also just the order tracking has. Evolved. And so we have an operations coordinator who keeps track of things as they're coming in and quality control and things like that.

And post COVID.  Boy was that more time consuming than it had been in the past. And so those were the two areas, and I think we undershot ourselves on the tracking primarily post COVID. That's kind of gotten back under control, although tariffs are a whole new. Fun animal that we get to deal with. And the final styling.

It's, it's the fun part. And so I think like this last, we just bid one and I was like, okay guys, really this time though, like  it's a really big house. What are we gonna, you know. And so it's just always evolving. 

Rebecca: I know we had to play some mental tricks on ourselves, like we were not doing a good job of accounting for that administrative time.Tracking a purchase, you could be on hold for 45 minutes and if it's an employee, you've gotta pay that person, even if they're just sitting on hold.  And so for a while, we were just like, whatever number we come up with add 20% because we couldn't force ourselves to be realistic with the numbers.

Caron: Exactly. And we've kind of gotten to that point also. And so like with the final styling, this when I said, okay guys, we just, that's what we did. We just added a percentage. 

Yeah, 

it's so true. 

Which helps too, 'cause the scale of the project. Is some, is part of what affects some of these items. Right. I'm super curious because you're mentioning you have a team, I wanna say there's eight or nine people on your team, correct?

Yeah. Yeah.  And you started the flat fee pricing four years in, you already had a team at that point, it sounds like. I did. It wasn't as big, but I did. Yeah. Yeah. How do you account for the boundaries? And the boundaries are in a lot of different angles, so like making sure that say. In my case that my designers weren't spending their time on admin things that my admin people should be doing.

So in our case, for example, we, we tracked their time and if they were spending more than 15% of all of their working hours on admin, I'm like, that's not your job. You shouldn't be having to do this heavy lifting. Right. So how, let's start with the employees. How do you account for the uncontrollables?  

Sure.

And so the nuts and bolts of that are we've created kind of an ad hoc spreadsheet that is basically every category, so it will have each room in the space  lined out, and then there are hours we've attributed to design, to  creating presentation materials, to  ordering samples,  to ordering the actual.

Merchandise project check-ins, you know, we'll stop by multiple times a week. Project coordination, things like that. We've itemized all of that. Well, 

but also we, and to your point earlier, you're not trying to put the client's mind on how many hours are passing. It shouldn't even wait on their mind. 

Correct. Yeah. And so we take that internal document that we've used to quote a project, but then every member of the team is accountable to staying within those hours. And so obviously there are gonna be exceptions to rules and we get that. But if Designer X is doing the bedroom and the bedroom had 10 hours of design time, right? 

If that goes beyond 10, there's accountability. Like, Hey, what happened there? Why is that happening? You know? And if it's, oh, I just found so many good things. It's like, all right, well let's just hone it. One designer really wasn't look, doing her floor plan first we found out, and so she was collecting all of these beautiful things. 

But then they didn't fit right, so we were like, no, no, no, no, no, no.  We have these in order for a reason. And you know, that only happened once. But it's just important for people to stay accountable for profitability. 'cause we're a team, right? And.  For the whole team to win. We all have to do our part. I say that we don't show the client that breakdown of how things go because I think they don't understand the, okay, well you've allocate, we've allocated so many hours for revisions.

Well, what if I don't have any revisions  and it just gets sticky to do that. Plus it's 

bizarre where all of our time goes. Like it really is, the design part doesn't take that much time. It's curating and editing and presenting.  

Just putting a proposal together is takes forever. You know, and we do these immense contractor booklets to keep on site.

Those take forever. And so it's just hard. And it's so funny how often we hear from a client, like, when I first saw your fee, 'cause it's a flat fee, we were like, whoa, how can it be that much? And at the end they're like, oh, we totally get it. But they don't have that insight until the end. So it's hard. I understand if that, if I had all that data in front of me, I would try to nickel and dime it too from the get go.

So what we do for a client is we give 'em a flat fee. We say what everything is involved, and then if they have further questions, we kind of break it down by room without explaining exactly what each component of that room is, because somebody may not have as many revisions that they request, but. Oh, the foreman that that great contractor had quit and now we're doing a thousand more check-ins.

So,  you know, it just, it,  in the course of the time that we've been doing it, we find that our formulas have worked well. 

How scary was it to start saying those big, big numbers to your clients sense? It's 

hard. It's still hard. Yeah. I mean, I think it's hard 'cause I'm a pleaser and I think.  You know, not to generalize, but I think as women we sometimes feel like we do need to please a little bit more, and so it's hard to go in there and say This is what it is.

So what's been helpful for me?  Is to think of myself like the mama bear for my work family. And that kind of helps me get my game face on like, Hey, this is not just about me because you know, when it was just me and I ate a few hours, like, okay, that was more palatable, but now you know these, this is my team and if I don't do this right, we all lose.

So I have some responsibility here too.  You know, represent well and we, what we provide is an amazing service, and I feel good about that. So it's been, it's a process 

of course, as is everything in life and the business. Yes. I'm, I'm encouraged to hear you. Well, I think I'm interpreting this correctly. You are doing a flat fee and that is also covering project management and installation, right?

Correct. Yes. A lot of the designers that I talked to about this choose to divide and conquer. They do flat fee for all the design work 'cause they feel like they control it, uh, they can control it, and then they do an hourly rate for project management. What made you, did you consider that? What made you decide to put it all under one umbrella?

Same thing, really. I just did it all under one umbrella because it was the opportunities where a contractor or a trade is. Awesome until they lose their number one guy that your client is still looking at you, the designer for help. And so we do not have one contractor that we make a client use. We're happy to use whomever they have a comfort level with.

And because that is the case, we do not make the site check-ins optional. We did have a service like that at one point, and it was called Shop Your Mood Board. And it was, uh, you know, we provided the design services and then we were out and you could call us in as needed.  Well, what was really happening was, Hey, I just have one quick question.

Can you stop by? And it's never one quick question. And we just found ourselves right back in the same spot. And so we were like, okay. No. And fortunately we had enough business where we felt confident saying, Hey, it is what it is. Take it or leave it. Which is a blessing. That's a blessing. And not something that everybody can say from the get go, but it was more of the same.

That's why we did it. It was just more of the same problem. 

What did you have to do, if anything, to your website, to your onboarding, to your intake forms, FAQs, to prepare clients for the kinds of numbers that they were going to have to.  Digest. 

We have a great operations coordinator, like I mentioned before, and she kind of takes that first call from people and gets a sense of what it is they're looking for, what their budget is, and if it is clearly not aligned with what we provide, then she will just tell 'em right off the bat, like.

This may not be what you're looking for and, and that's okay and we can refer you to somebody else, but if it is, then we'll, you know, probe a little bit further and get an idea of the scope of their project. We sent a pre-consult questionnaire to our clients that we just came up with, and it's a Google form  that we email to them, and it's got information for our CRM that we keep on.

Um, it's, it's a dual purpose, so, you know, we keep track of some of their fun items, like their birthdays and stuff, so we can keep in touch. But also kind of the scope of what their project, where the first place they like to go shopping for furniture is, and if it's Amazon, that's kind of like a, it's a signal.

Nothing wrong with Amazon, I mean, but you know, if, if you're hiring us and that is where you wanna get all your furniture, then we may not be perfectly aligned on for that project. And then that's been helpful. So if we see any red flags there, we can reach out and, you know, we're perfectly happy. Like if you say, I like Pottery Barn, but I want accessories from like, you know, Amazon or wherever, work.

All about a high low mix. I'm not saying that we're so snobby that we'll just say no, absolutely not. But we're just trying to really get to know our client because it's awful if you get involved and it's not a good fit. And one thing that was really hard for me to finally accept doing, but has been very helpful is to start charging for an initial consult.

And when did that begin?  That only started like two years ago. And what triggered that? Just the seriousness of people looking for help. Because sometimes it's like, if it's a free consult, well I'll just get 'em over here and get their ideas. Yeah. And I would do that all day if I could, but at the same time, you kind of get, have to get to a point. 

Like I said, for the team for profitability, that you want to get the people involved who are more serious with their reach out, um, when they reach out. So it's kind of a three level thing. So first level is.  Phone call, their initial call and being super clear and, uh, communicating with them about what their needs are and what service we provide.

And then the second layer is the pre-consult questionnaire, and then the third level is charging for that consult so that they know what to expect. And then with regard to the website, that's been an evolution too. Um. It used to be very like,  uh, I think when I was younger, you just want everybody, right?

So you kind of kept it vague. 'cause maybe I'll tailor it to exactly what they need. Um, but now if you look at our website, it's very clear. It's got what our workflow is, what to expect. We base everything by, you know, it's a flat fee. Everything is based on an internal crunching of numbers. And our hourly rate is base is 1 75.

So that kind of gives them an idea of where we'll be in terms of like the kitchen is definitely not just 10 hours. So they know they're gonna have more of a significant in, uh, investment.  And then it does say in the fine print. We will take on a very few select projects that are, you know, by the hour our a la carte.

Um, and that is for like,  we've done that a couple of times where it, you know, one of our favorite clients is about to have their first grandchild, something like that. And it's a nursery and that's fun. But we also knew the person and I don't wanna ever rule anything out, but. I hope it's managing expectations in terms of what they can expect from us.

Are you still given all the clarity in your website and all the work that you've done, are you still getting clients that call who are confused?  No. 

Okay. Not really. No. We're really not getting very many calls from people who are confused at this point, which I think has been super helpful. I think when we didn't say what like our base hourly rate was before like.

That was because if you have no idea of what that is, then you just don't know. But I think that's been helpful and it, and it has been a refinement process over the years. You know, just, okay, this person called, they seem to confuse about this, so let's add this, tailor this, and. Like I said, new, new boundary over here.

Exactly. It's just always evolving. Speaking of boundaries especially, 'cause it sounds like you do very large scope projects in addition to small scope projects. How detailed is your scope of work and how do you know when you're crossing outside of that scope of work? Given that that's  when we start losing money on a flat fee project. 

Sure. When we quote the project, well first we have a 14 page contract, which sounds ridiculous, but also something that's an evolution of time. Oh, well, you know, you're always trying to. Stave off any miscommunications. So when we quote the project, every room is listed. Each room and what is in included for that room.

I mean, it can be, and it, it's ridiculous. It's why it's a 14 page contract. Like it's everything is listed and if somebody starts to creep outside of that, we'll say. Hey, you know, this is outside of your scope. I'm happy to answer this one time, you know, or do this as a one time thing, and this actually just happened this week.

Somebody, um, had us do their whole home, but said, Hey, I don't, I don't need you to do the secondary bedrooms. I mean, it's just bedding. I can figure that out. Like, don't worry about it.  And we were like, okay, so we didn't put it in the contract and now she's getting close to the end and she's like, I can't do these bedrooms.

I just need you to do 'em. And previously she had asked for just some paint colors in there and we'd said, no problem. We'll just, you know, it's not that different from the palette for the rest of the house, so we'll just go ahead and include it at this time. We had to say, okay, this is outside of your scope. 

It will be about these many hours and then at 1 75 an hour. Does that sound okay to you? Um, it will be more if you want to keep changing it, and she said yes, absolutely. So, you know, it's a give and take. It's,  you know, you don't wanna be such a stickler that you alienate somebody, but most of these people are reasonable.

And so, you know, it's like.  One in 20. That's not super reasonable, but you kind of know that.  Probably looking back, you're like, yeah, I probably shouldn't have said yes to them. Yes, but it's, you know, it's not an exact science. 

No. 

One thing we did do is in our contract, we said you get two rounds of revisions. 

So each room, two rounds of revisions. If the first round of revisions is, I hate it, start over. That's okay. That's one round of revisions. And  that also was helpful because people would be like.  Before we had that in there, you know, oh, I wanna change this lamp, huh? Okay, well now maybe I wanna change this.

And, and it would just make the timeline go on forever. And so to say, two rounds of revisions, keeps your timeline on track, keeps you sane, makes them more thoughtful and intentional with their evaluation when you send it. And so it's just better for everybody involved because they want it done quickly. 

You want it done quickly. And so as much as you can do to make that happen is in both your best interests.  

Were you always, was it always easy for you to track your time? I hear from a lot of designers that they can never remember to track their own time. 

Oh gosh, it. Horrible. And, uh, it's super hard. And as like the business owner, it's the thing that I've had to like really kind of be the toughest with my staff about, and with myself about, you know, it doesn't, it's not just them, but, you know, drive time, heads up if you have, if we're 45 minutes from a client, right?

Like that's something to think about.  Logging your time. So what we do is in, uh, we use hows for our design work, and then that integrates with QuickBooks and that's what we use for our accounting. But within hows, you can track your time and we have set up like 20 different categories of how you spend your time.

So if it's, and we round to the nearest 15 minutes, so. 15 minutes was, you know, on hold. You know, on hold is not one, but procurement, right? Say something like that. We try to be super detailed with all of that, and we can see who's doing what too. So like, oh, Sally spent 20 hours designing, but Jane spent 10 hours doing the same room, another bedroom in 10 hours, but so and so is more efficient with.

Procurement than this person. Then we'll get around a table and kind of exchange ideas as to what's making someone more efficient than someone else at a certain thing. But yeah, we try to be very detailed in our timekeeping so that we can kind of run the numbers on graphs and run reports that show us everything.

And if we see that somebody is putting all of their time in at once. That's like a red flag and we'll say no, there's no way that's accurate. 'cause you can't just keep track of all of that in your head. So we're making sure that our staff, me included, are putting in our time on a daily basis to kind of make sure to hold us all accountable.            

'cause it's not fun and it's a pain in the butt. It's a pain in the butt. 

To  do it. Um, but reconstructing it like, I don't remember what I did yesterday. I can't even pretend to remember what I did yesterday. 

Yeah, no. And I'll be like, oh, that must've only taken me an hour. No, that took me three hours. Right.

And so you have to be mindful of that. And at one point, um, somebody on staff said to me,  it takes me like an hour to log my time.  Probably per pay. And I was like, great, go ahead and put that down. Like I wanna know and you should be compensated for it because what that is providing me is value. So go ahead and do that, but we need that data.

Yeah, absolutely. It's not sexy, it's not fun. If it's taking you forever, go ahead and let's account for that too. Um, because it's necessary. It is the number one thing because you can't stay in business if you don't do that stuff. 

Yeah. How, I don't know if you do, one of the things I noticed as I was hiring over the years is that my new designers took about three times as long as me at any task, which is to be expected 'cause they're new. 

Sure. Do you account for the different levels of your designers and expect them to take different amounts of time for things based on their experience level? 

Yes. So the one who didn't do the floor plan first, right? That was a new, that was a newbie and she was a phenomenal student. But once she got into the real world of design and getting to do it for real, she just kind, kind of threw process out the window and wanted to make it just as beautiful as she could be.

Her heart was in the right place. It was just a learning curve, and you have to account for that. And. So when we do factor in those hours,  that is something to definitely be mindful of. Is this gonna be, uh, and, and usually your new designers don't make as much money, so you can still afford to have a project  right at your fee, even though it's gonna take them a lot longer. 

Because it's gonna take me, I'll review it more, but their time is less than mine. And so you just have to account for that properly. And that was another kind of  edit we had to make to our process was. We were doing a project and we were like, why are we so far over on these hours? And what happened was the person was the, our new hire was getting trained and so she was just shadowing our designer who was on the project all day, every day.

And she was.  Tracking those hours to the project and not to training. So then when we saw that, we were like, okay, that is what's happened here. We didn't just go way off with quoting this. So then we had to add a new category of like training, and then we tell the person, okay, book your time to this until  X amount of time.

But yeah, it's just refining. 

I can tell that you have learned a lot as you've been refining it and creating this process. Yes. Looking back, if you had a magic wand to the, when you started all this, what's the big thing you wish you'd known when you started? What would've gotten you to where you are now?

Faster 

with the, uh.  Do you mean with the just flat fee billing in general? Like fee billing? Yeah.  Oh. To create more and more categories for tracking time. Just to be, especially upfront, you know, we were more vague in the beginning with all the different categories because I didn't want to. Exhaust people with tracking their time.

But now I see. I mean, it would've saved a lot of money in the long run had I just said, tell me to pay you for more time or increase your wish 'cause you're logging all this extra time. We would've come out ahead anyway. I listened 

to an episode design discussions with Nadine that you were on. Yes. And in it you said that you love talking to your clients, and I'm sure that's the southerner in you coming out. 

Are your meetings just going on for forever? Do you allocate a certain amount of time?  Oh, if 

my right hand, uh, man, Allison were here, she would be like cackling because that is a problem for me. I've had to learn how to like.  Stop talking so much.  'cause here's the deal. When you're working with somebody on their home, it becomes emotional because you're trying to get to know them.

You're learning about their family, their stories. This is special to me because, and you figure out things you have in common and things you don't. And these people mostly become like dear friends, after a while, you know you're with them a lot.  And so I've had to really start like wearing a watch and like occasionally if I know like. 

If it's somebody I know that I'm gonna talk to for a long time, I'll set a timer on my phone and be like, look, I always get into trouble when I'm with you because I have way too much fun. So just so you know, I have set this timer to like keep us both honest and they're like, no, no, totally get it. But it's a problem because it's a delicate balance because you do wanna connect.

It does inform the design. But it does get outta hand, and so that's what I've had to do is wear a watch and just like start walking into the conversation, prefacing it and they get it. I mean, they probably don't wanna be there for three hours either.  

It sounds like you are leading most of the meetings,  so you know, are you leading by example, are your team members also talkative? 

How does it play out when you're training your team for these things? 

Yes. So here's how it works. Typically. Now what happens is I go to the initial consult, I go to the first meeting, we talk it through, I am, you know, involved in the design on the backend with the team of designers. And then we'll go to the first presentation.

And then after that, the lead designer and um, the other designers on that project will go after that. And I still come sometimes, but I'm not there all the time.  And they just know by now, I think our clients know too, like Caron is the one who will talk forever. Allison is the one who will be brilliant and artistic, but also close her laptop and be like, okay, we're done.

And walk out. I mean, they get to know us and all of the designers know that. My expectation is to connect on an emotional level because that's.  It's people's homes and they need that. So they all seem to get that. And I think when we, um, interview designers that is, you know, you can't.  Teach that kind of thing.

And so that's something that I'm looking for when we interview designers, is people who can connect on an emotional level and really, you know, have a conversation and not just be, you know, okay, whatever. I saw this on Pinterest. I don't need to get to know that, you know, I don't want that. I want, I want authenticity with people, so hopefully I'm putting people in the right positions that can kind of emulate what I expect. 

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? Like 

zooming out. Zooming way out, somebody's listening, they really wanna embrace flat fee pricing. What is one piece of advice you would give to somebody who's nervous about taking the plunge? 

Go back and look at your metrics. Be very detailed, and if you haven't done it, do it now and start looking at your numbers and how you're spending time and see if you can create a matrix. 

Based on that, and then give yourself some grace because you won't get it right the first time. It will be ever evolving because you have pandemics, you have tariffs, you have who knows what else, and then start. It's data-driven. It's not the fun pretty why we got into this, but it's the thing that lets you keep doing this is to pay attention to the data.

And once you feel good about your data.  Just do it. It really, it really does pay off in the long run emotionally and financially to do it and, and be upfront with your clients if you want to. You can say, Hey, we used to do this by the hour. I promise you, you're gonna get a better service and a better value overall if we do it this way. 

And I think that they'll appreciate that. I think you should do it no matter what, because there has not been a single flat fee project where our margin has been less than when we did by the hour, so that I feel good about, and then as you go, it just gets better and better. So I really feel like it protects your sanity.

It protects the timeline. It protects your client's sanity.  It's really worth doing, even though it's super scary to take the plunge and do it. And really you may not do it until it just becomes obvious that you can't continue the other way anymore, and that probably will happen at a certain point. You just can't be that giving of yourself for that long, or you'll burn out.

You have to protect your sanity and your time and  the confidence. Comes and you get to a point where it's the only option.  

I agree with you 100%. And so for anybody listening, Caron and I are cheering you on. 'cause we have reaped the rewards of this and we want them for you too.  

Yes, you can do it. So just create your matrix of how you quote your project.

Track your time to the nth degree and you can do it. You can get it done. Speaking 

of things that we need encouragement for, you have this fewer finer mantra, which I'm assuming now means that you have to say to clients, this is not a fit for us.  Yes. Did the question I alluded to at the beginning, did you always have the fortitude to say no to people?

No. 

Uhuh,  I did not have the opportunity like. When you are starting, you, you, you can't, right? Like, I mean, you're building a reputation, but you don't have it yet, so you don't get that right away. And it was  so hard to come to that conclusion. And what I was seeing is it's so hard not to compare yourself to the other people around you in your market area.

You see these beautiful websites of these people with 30 person teams and you're just like, wow, look at them. But then I would ask, is that what I want? And it's not really, that's not what I wanted. I like that connection with people. Hence the talking too much. I like. Knowing my team really well and getting around a table together every week and talking through things.

I just had the realization one day that I was like, I don't want that, and that's okay.  I really love the team that I work with and I wanna protect that. And so. I just thought if fewer finer, just popped into, into my head one day and I was like, that's what I want. That's exactly what I want. And I have loved it so much, but no, it did not come right away.

It was an evolution. Like everything else, it's either asking people to wait a really long time, which most people, no matter how much they love you, right, they're, they can't, they just can't wait that long. And that's okay. So. Either just telling 'em it's gonna be that long and it's okay if you don't wanna wait.

Or just saying, I just don't feel like, like you said, we're a great fit. There are a number of other people, and I know my, you know, market competition around here, the other designers, and they're all amazing. And so based on what the person is expressing, I'm happy to refer them to one of those companies because. 

I just can't do it all. But no, it's really hard 'cause you don't wanna hurt people's feelings, especially when they want you. But you just can't. You can't do it. Plus good people are really hard to find. I love my team. I want to spend my time with them. And I don't want to, you know, if you have that many people, you're just gonna be an HR person at a certain point, point, and I don't, that's not why I do this.

And do, does it mean  that I can make less maybe than if I am just a figurehead at the top? Probably. But I would also be super unhappy if I did that, and that's not worth it to me. 

Yeah.  How do, you said your, um, your operations person is the one that fields the first calls. Yes. Aside from the budget, just simply not aligning based on the quality that you guys are going to deliver, what are some of the other things that signal that they might not be the right fit for your company? 

Oh, if they're not kind to her, like, if they talk to her like she's a nobody, that's a red flag. Um.  We had somebody call in not that long ago, and I mean, their budget was bananas and they were so rude and we just couldn't get to 'em for a month, you know, for a consult. And I said, you have no idea the amount of money we're gonna spend on this project.

Ew, you need to make us a priority.  And  I was like, well, that's not who I wanna spend my time with for the next year. Um. And so those kinds of things, you just, that initial read of somebody or,  so it's not always just a budget thing, it's a personality thing. It can be if their design style is just something that is not in our wheelhouse necessarily, like  then,  you know, I, I am personally not a great, or it's not my favorite thing to do, farmhouse.

You know, and, and it, it never really was, um, my number one, even though I'm in Texas, right? Like, that's a huge deal around here. But if they want farmhouse, there's somebody else that can do that and maybe a little bit better. So we like to do a lot, we like to make things very unique and, and that doesn't mean crazy, and that doesn't mean, you know, tacky.

It just means. Not like everything else, nothing canned, but some people want like a canned design and that's okay. That's just not what we do as interior designers, 

a lot of companies, we only see a handful of projects every single year. You only have so much time to build a portfolio that says, this is what we're great at.

And so if you spend your time.  On a project that can't be photographed, that can't keep you current, that's a bigger liability than just,  it's not just about, I didn't have the right client that I loved. It actually has a ripple effect for years potentially. 

Right? Yeah. Because if you do a project that you didn't like. 

And everybody wants, if say you do have it photographed and it, you put it on your website, people are like, oh my gosh, I loved that. You're gonna be stuck doing that even though it wasn't your favorite  or it's not reflective of your brand. And like you said, I mean, that's just a spiral effect that's. 

These are 

things that we might have to do in the early years. Right? But you want to grow to the place where you have choices and then you want to employ those choices, 

right? And, and that's.  It's a labor. It takes time. It just takes time to get there. Yeah, 

and And some courage and confidence. Yes. Speaking of courage and confidence on that same podcast, you had said that you are horrible about putting yourself out there, which really surprised me because you have quite a bit of press and you're here today because I got a cold email from PR agent. 

Yes. 

And so I'm, I'm curious, what advice do you have for other designers who are also reticent about putting themselves out there? What, how have you approached this? Do you hire for help? What have you, how do you budget for that? Tell us. 

That is so hard for me. It's so hard for me. Social media for me is like.

I'm horrible at it in terms of being on it. I, I can have the best conversation with you right now, you know, on this zoom, but I cannot,  once you turn like a third, like a camera on me that I'm not supposed to look at,  uh, is awful. I'm terrible at it. What I'm, I feel like what I'm good at is writing storytelling.

And so PR has been helpful for me because that provides more of an avenue for that type of thing than social media. Like I cannot get on a camera and like have it, you know, in my arm facing me saying it's demo day. I cannot do it in a way that feels authentic. That would take an hour for me to just say demo day.

Um, 'cause I'm hugely self-critical too. Mm-hmm. So find, I've had to find the types. Of things that work better for me. I know my social media would be hugely improved if I would just be on it more. Everyone has told me this. I just am not good at it. It's something I'm still working on. I, I am working on it.

I know I need to do it. I just am terrible at it. So I keep trying to find other ways, conversations. I love to be like, Nadine was so nice when I did that YouTube show.  That was not a problem. Even though it was kind of a bigger deal than me just being on social media. It was a conversation with another person that I can do PR has been great written because I can provide insight.

I have more confidence in my intellect than I do in my, than my stage presence.  That's what it is. So just finding ways to, you know, when we're talking about a topic and how to be good at your job.  That is what I like to try to do more than just being a soundbite. 

I mean, to me what I'm hearing is successful marketing choices.

You figured out what works for you and you're leveraging that. Why do you feel like it's still important for you to up the social 

media game?  Because everybody says that it's, it's a,  it's kind of a peer pressure thing. The whole social media thing is hard for me. One, there are so many people out there trying to sell how to be good at social media.

Like that's a whole career path for a lot of people. And so you hear it all the time and I just, I keep trying to buck that pressure,  but at a certain point, am I.  Doing a disservice to my team by not being on there. I ask them that all the time and they, they say no, 'cause they don't wanna do it either.

But it is hard for me to, it, it, it is currently the thing that I struggle with the most is finding ways to market myself that feel. Comfortable. 

I would be very, I've never hired a PR person before and I would love some insight into how you chose the person that you had worked with. What kind of budget did that require?

What kind of long-term commitment, or did it or not require? 

My experiences? I found mine through word of mouth, um, from a photographer actually who has done some of our project. And had good things to say. And so I was like, oh, okay. Well, writing magazine, that's more in my wheelhouse than any kind of social media platform.

So I reached out and it felt like a good fit and it's a six month engagement, and she was great. You know, she put me in positions to shine and gave very honest feedback about what she thought I was a better fit for, and that was super helpful.  I don't do it all the time. I can't afford to do it all the time.

It's expensive. 

Are we talking three zeros, four zeros, five zeros? How, what kind of bill are we 

talking? Three to four zeros. Yeah. Per month. Three zero. 

Sure. 

Okay. Yeah. 

Yeah. Which then adds up. 

So it adds up. Yes. And I don't find I need it all the time there. You know, you start to make inroads with some of these publications too, that you can do it on your own. 

Which is huge and I have found that it, I think if you provide that publication with good content, they'll keep coming back to you with or without a press agent. So I would strongly encourage you to make the most of those opportunities when you have them. And I do it every other year or so. All of a sudden you had a ton of press and then you don't have as much, it doesn't really look great on your website.

Um, so it's just a balancing act. You make a budget every year for your marketing costs, and then you figure out how you're gonna allocate it. And some years it's more local marketing with, you know, client events and outreach that way. And then, so we'll do that one year, and then the next year we'll do more national publications.

So it's not just a.  Super blanket. We do pr, we do a lot of things, and some of it is pr.  

You know, for somebody who said she's gr not good at marketing, you are extremely good at marketing. I'm just gonna say it. Oh,  

well, thank you. It is the hardest thing about owning a business for me. That's the number one.

I can do spreadsheets, I can do client interaction, I can do design, but the marketing to me is the thing that feels the least.  Comfortable, 

and I think it's the thing that surprises most business owners. You didn't just become a business owner and an interior designer and your own bookkeeper at first and all these things, right?

But you're also the chief marketing officer with not a clue where to begin. A 

hundred percent. A hundred percent. I much. Preferred learning QuickBooks,  putting myself on social media. It's just hard. And it's, you know, we're in a subjective business and so to just put yourself out there, like, everyone judge me, please go for it.

And it's a like, by the way, there's 0% chance I can please all of you because this is subjective.  So just hit me with your best shot. I know that's, that's not.  How I should look at it.  

It's not inaccurate. I mean, you're basically putting, um, what do I wanna say? Um, vulnerable content out into a toxic quagmire.

Just hundreds  come bite 

me sharks. It'll be great.  Exactly. And like you put your blood, sweat, and tears into these projects and now you're gonna hate me because of my accent. Like, I'm so, it's so hard. So I need a thicker skin and I it, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. And then I'll figure that out and I'll have to work on something else because we own businesses.

That's true. And that's what it is to own a business.  

Well, going back, big, big picture as we wrap this up, is there anything you would really like to leave your colleagues with who are listening today?  

I would encourage someone who's wrestling with the idea of going to a flat fee, um, pricing structure to have a confidence to do it if they feel like they have a strong client base.

And then why it doesn't just take confidence, it takes pragmatism too. And like really, really look at those numbers so that you can sustain it.  And I think that if you do those two things, you'll be really better off. And I find, I think you'll have happier clients at the end too.  

Perfect advice. Thank you so much for sharing your very hard-earned wisdom with us today.

Thank you. Oh, it was my pleasure.  This is what I love to do, so thank you for having me. 

Uh, okay. Little Postscript note here. I wanted to ask you, because a, a designer recently asked me who's in the Houston market, like, should I move? It's so crowded here and obviously you're thriving and you started in the Houston market, I believe. 

Yes. Okay. I did check that. Okay. So specific to your market, any advice on what it takes to survive and thrive in Houston?  

Yes. So the Greater Houston area encapsulates a huge geographical region with many suburbs. So I'm actually just north of Houston in a town called The Woodlands. I think really defining what it is that you, provide your clients and what your style is, is hugely helpful in Houston because they are so many to choose from.  While it can feel limiting to say exactly what it is that you do, it's not, people are looking for that.

And so I think the more that you can do that, the better off you'll be. That was good advice for anybody and not just people who live in Houston.

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Caron, and then it gives you insight into what it takes to set yourself up for success as a flat fee designer.

Yes, it takes discipline, but I promise it pays off. 

If you're looking for an interior design business coach to help you through all this stuff, remember, I'm just a zoom call  📍 away@seriouslyhappy.com. Just wanna be friends. Come find me on Instagram at be seriously happy.

That's be spelled out. BE, seriously, happy. And last but not least, don't forget to subscribe, comment and leave a review. See you next time.