Hello and welcome to episode 16 of design.
Curious podcast. I'm your host and Mentor,
Rebecca Ward, and today on the podcast, I have a great
interview with Porsha Williams from the Prototype.
She is someone that I've been working with since early on this
year and she has really been instrumental in improving my
client relations, and my client experience.
So let me tell you a little bit more about her.
She has a feeling that she is not alone in feeling that there
are not enough hours in the day to get it all done.
She is a mom wife entrepreneur, networker Avid tennis fan
wannabe Gourmet Chef and Hostess sister, friend and Confidant,
all the things. And that's why she started the
Prototype, her name is Porsha Williams and her mission is to
help other busy professionals and luxury service providers,
have more time with less stress. So she gets into the services.
She provides in the episode. I really enjoy working with her.
I enjoyed talking with her, in this episode.
And I think you will too will have her information of course
for you in the show notes afterwards.
If you'd love to reach out to her and work with her yourself
and before we get into the episode, I'd like to remind you,
we do have our promotion running for my design Mentor, the
mentorship program that I have, you can find out more on my
website and we have bonuses running where you Can earn 30
minute calls with me, one-on-one to talk about your career
questions. And if you're looking to start a
business, I have all that information for you at my design
Mentor. So go ahead and check that out.
Like I said, prices will be going up in January, so you want
to take advantage of the great prices lock that in now before
they do go up. Okay?
So now let's hear from Porsche You're now listening to design,
curious a place where you creative one are here to learn
about what it really is. Like, to be an interior designer
and I'm your host and Mentor Rebecca, Ward, if you're worried
about how to succeed in a creative career, if you're ready
to learn your next steps to become an Interior Designer.
And if you want the satisfaction of doing something you love
every day, you are in the right place.
Grab a coffee, a notebook. And Let's dig into today's
episode. I Porsche thank you for coming
on design curious today. Thank you so much.
It's so great to be here, and I'm happy to have this
conversation with you. Yeah.
And for our listeners, I asked for sure to come on this podcast
because I work with her. She and her team are my client
services managers and they do all my intake calls and respond
to inquiries and do my client gifting which has been such a
help to my business and so we'll get into that a little bit more,
why that's important for designers.
But first off, I wanted to talk with you Porsche about how you
got the Prototype started and what was the thing that
propelled you into starting this business?
Yeah, thank you. I just have to say, I really
enjoyed working with you and your team.
You all are amazing and hoping I'm happy that we've been able
to make a positive difference in your business.
How Started the Prototype really came down to creating what I
needed at the time, which in my life at that time.
And 2015, I was a new wife and a new mom and I was working and my
previous career of luxury retail and I needed a change because
the retail environment was no longer conducive to my lifestyle
and I wanted more freedom and control over.
My time. But I also was overwhelmed by
all of the things that entail, you know, being a wife and being
a mother and working for Britain and, you know, having wearing
all of these different hats. And so I had conversations with
people that I looked up to that were successful that, you know,
on the outside looking in seem to just have it all figured out
and all together. And what I heard from them
consistently was that they had a lot of Art, you know, they had a
lot of support behind the scenes to enable them to put their best
foot forward. And that is how the Prototype
started. We initially started with only
offering personal concierge services, and connecting people
with personal trainers, and personal shoppers and personal
chef, to help, support them in their personal lives.
So that they could show up, you know, looking great feeling
great and their day-to-day lives.
And as the business progressed over the years and I learned the
market more and what people were really needing we transition to
more comprehensive lifestyle Concierge support.
And that is where we started working with our executive
clients who we help in both their business and personal
life. And that is what led us into the
client intake process. We were actually meeting with an
interior. Design firm to talk about
offering personal concierge service to their clients as an
extension and like an Aftercare type of role for their clients.
And that Designer asked if if there is any way that we could
help with their client intake and being, you know, having a
passion for customer service and and really enjoying working with
people and helping people. I just said, yes.
And I was and I was, you know, thinking, you know, this is
something that we could do. It wasn't something that we had
done specifically for clients before in the past but it's
definitely within our wheelhouse of service and providing people
with more time and less stress. That was our first interior
designer that we worked with. And since then and over the and
over the years we've just grown and you know, we've always grown
off of referrals and Word of Mouth.
And that continued and we've began to get more relationships
within the interior design Community, which has been super
helpful. And I feel like we've really
developed a niche and an expertise around the Clyde
experience overall, from the intake process, on the front end
to gifting and, and nurturing those relationships through
strategic gifting and best we are now.
And that's how we were introduced to you.
That's wonderful while. Yeah, it's great.
How you are able to Pivot? Kind of what you started.
I mean, I'm sure you're still servicing other Industries but
what percentage would you say our interior designers right
now, I would say probably 70% or interior designers.
Yeah. Because we're able to work with
more interior designers at a time then we're able to with
personal and business concierge clients.
So, That's a significant part of our business.
It's really really fun to do. And I just love helping our
clients, get in front of the right people to take on projects
that are ideal for them. It's hard.
When you're starting your business to say no to things,
but I think it's so important to be able to have somebody to help
you carve out what truly is ideal because saying no to
Something's allows you to be able to say yes to the right
thing. Exactly.
Yeah, so good, yeah. So it's q and then how many
other people do you have on staff?
I have five women on my team. We're actually all based here in
my area in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and we have a, we have a
war here in Dallas Fort Worth and then one that's remote that
is in a non client-facing role. But we have a really great
relationship and we have two of them are client intake, Listen
to them, our business personal concierge, and we have, you
know, grown a lot this year and it's been great to really start
to build a company culture. Everyone on the staff, we're all
moms. So we all understand how to wear
multiple hats and manage a lot of different things.
They all have previous you know, professional backgrounds and
this is a great fit for them because we do have a lot of
flexibility. We and our scheduling, because
family is important and yeah, it's been a great time to see
how the company has grown and how it'll continue to grow.
That's wonderful. Yeah, so why is it important for
designers to Outsource their client intake?
I know this is an area that I realized after having my own
business and doing my own intake calls for a long time.
As soon as I had, like, an intern Someone else that I
another employee that I hired, I kind of passed it on to them to
do the intake because I personally have such a hard
time, like, saying no, to people and like, you're saying that
you're not able to say, no, then you're not able to take these
other opportunities, that might be a better fit.
So I know that that is definitely one of the advantages
of Outsourcing your client intake.
Or there are others that you can see.
That might benefit designers. Yeah, I think there's a few
reasons. Ben's first it helps to create
boundaries between you as the principal designer and
respective clients from the beginning, which is really
important in establishing that mutually respectful partnership
that you have with that client. It helps to nourish any friction
later on. And it helps to kind of set the
standard for what your communication will be liked by
having that buffer, I think. To prospective clients, take
comfort in knowing that a designer has a support system in
their business. It builds credibility, and it
helps them to know that the designer is it shouldering
everything in their business, from design to administrative
stuff. And then, I think the most
important benefit is that, doing the client intake, is not an
effective use of your time. I'm as a designer if the
expectations of an ideal client and ideal project can be
communicated, it really allows you to be able to focus on what
requires food or specific and unique expertise.
Like obviously doing the design doing project management
building the business so that you can continue to grow.
You know, it just helps to make a really good first impression
to because, you know, if you're taking Discovery calls, You're
distracted or you're driving or you're you know, at the
beginning of your business, you're very hungry for more
business and you want to take everyone's call, it's hard to
sometimes, it won't give a good first impression.
And so having that Outsource, because we have certain
requirements around the background being quiet and, and
work focused 100% on that call, we're taking notes.
A moment, we're taking payment for the consultation, and the
moment getting It scheduled right then it's a very seamless
and elevated experience for that perspective client, which builds
trust overall. Mmm, really good.
So do you have like a already have processes and procedures
set up that you bring like say there's a new designer starting
out and they might not have documented, how they want their
intake call to go, or don't have a lot of experience doing the
discovery call process. Do you have one kind of set up
already? That's like a template that you
use. Or yeah.
We have some templates that we use the based on working with
designers all over the country and at this point all over the
world. And so there are some
similarities between the process that we help our clients with.
And if they need help with creating that documentation, we
will take care of that for them, helping them with get it, a
separate business, phone line, set up or A separate email
address is set up so that they're not communicating with
from their personal email accounts.
We do a pretty detailed onboarding call to understand
what the current process is if there is one and if there isn't
one helping them, think about what should be included and then
how we can follow that process to take care of the quantity.
So this type of service might seem challenging for someone
starting out to be able to afford.
What would you recommend to a designer starting out?
Like, why would they want to Outsource this and spend the
money? Well, I think that when you're
starting a business, there are certain things that you budget
for before you before you start, you know, that you're going to
have to put money towards your website and your logo and
branding. And and so I think the smartest
thing is to add it in at the beginning because you know,
investing in this will it will serve you well because it'll
it'll help to break bad habits before they started.
So if you have an inconsistent experience from the beginning,
or are you started with not having boundaries with clients
from the beginning? It's harder to break that down
the road and it's really expensive to take on projects
that aren't ideal. Clients that aren't a fit and I
know you can relate to that. Like it seems like, oh, I'll
just take off. Like one little project is not
quite right, but, you know, I can make it work and then that
project turns out to be like a nightmare.
Because because you said, yes when maybe you should have said
no. Yeah, I think that's important.
Yeah, for sure and it's not necessarily even like the
financial aspect of taking on a bad client.
It's like the anguish and suffering.
A mental suffering me. Go through deal.
Yes. That's challenging client.
When it's just not worth. With all that stress, it is that
yes, one thing I will say and this is something that I did
starting and I know other business owners.
Have done is, I used to have a, like a phantom Alias assistant
her name. Louis, her name was Nicole,
could be transparent. Nicole is me, but it gave the
perception that I had support before I had the support.
So Nicole would respond to certain emails and It helps like
from a mindset standpoint, it really helps to like put you in
the space of really being the business owner and the CEO and
understanding how important your time is.
And it's a good like gold temporary.
Happy until you're ready to hire some more support.
Yeah, that's really good too because it can also help shift
your mindset from like it's just me as a solopreneur to like this
is a business and we ask you this and we are Yeah, but email.
Yeah, the speaking and ways is a big one, is a big one and it
took a long time for me to even before I had staff, I had to
start speaking and weeds for the majority of the year.
So my business it was just myself.
Yeah. And only in the last two years
have had grown on a consistent team and so I had to start
speaking and weeds before there was a, we can we eat, please?
So then what kind of information does need to be gathered to
determine if a client is a good fit outside of the, you know,
basic information and scope of work.
It's important to get to know why this project is important to
a client and at that specific time.
And what's driving their decision to move forward?
It helps to just understand their mind frame and where
they're at. If they've worked with.
Designers before also budget is really important and a lot of
times people say that they don't know the budget and I think most
people do have an idea of how much they want to invest, but I
think they're also willing to say because they don't really
know how much things cost you know, and they don't know what
to expect. So it's really important to be
transparent about that from the beginning.
We just try to ask a lot of questions around, who are The
decision-makers outside of the person that we're speaking with
because if it's a husband and wife, you know, maybe one
spouse, maybe the like the driving forces behind.
Okay, I'm ready to get this done and they'll do the initial
outrage, and they will, will have a discovery call with them.
We may schedule a consultation and then the other spouse comes
to the consultation and has like no idea of that.
Their spouse is so gung-ho about Getting this done and how much
it's going to cost. And so we try to establish that
ahead of time to make sure that everyone's on the same page and
for our designers to. It's really awkward to be in
that situation if you're in a consultation and the two
decision-makers clearly aren't on the same page so we try to
avoid that as much as possible by getting that information.
And I think the last thing is like it's important to gather
information but it's Equally important to educate the
prospective client on our clients, their design firms
unique value their process. The types of projects they work
on, give them some insight into the expectations that they
should have timelines. It's not a transactional
conversation. It's a two-way relationship.
And it's a long time that designers are often working with
clients. So it's important to have that
at personable and personal experience from the beginning.
Yeah. And it is even a gold for.
I think designers to have long-term relationships with
their clients. So if it's smooth at the
beginning, then it can remain smooth over the years of.
Yeah, there's a lot of projects are in phases or they'll, you
know, they'll have a successful kitchen, remodel men will be
like, okay, now that I know what, how you work and I like
you, let's work on the primary sweet or something like that.
Yeah, so So yeah, it's really important to spend that time
upfront. Doing your due diligence to make
sure they're the good client. Yeah, yeah.
So I know another aspect of what how you helped me and other
designers is client gifting. So let's talk about that.
Like why is it important to include gifting as part of your
business model? So strategic gifting is, it's
technically, a Being approached but it's really about building
relationships. Like people do business with
people that they know like and trust and you will get more
business from personal relationships referrals,
increased retention among your current clientele then you'll
get through Google ads or Facebook ads, like it's all
about the relationship. And so it's important to find
ways. To stay top of mind for those
key business relationships, and that can be clients.
It can also be internal team members, strategic Partners
trades people. In your circle of influence that
you may not have done business with before we love, love love
gifting. And it's just everyone loves to
receive. And if it's done in the right
intentions, it's an unconditional way too.
Show that person that you care about them and that you're
thinking about them. And oftentimes internal, you'll
be top of mind for them. So it just makes things more
personalized. It's more thoughtful way to
approach, increasing your clientele through Europe URLs
and retention. Yeah.
And I always think it's so I know we've set up certain points
of our process that we will gift a client.
So we'll do it on the intake when they are.
Onboarding and then oftentimes will do it as we're starting the
implementation of a project and they're the demos happening and
everything's like torn up and it's like the hard part.
That's how I like it. Yeah, yeah, we know it's really
challenging right now. Here's a little gift LP throw.
And then we do it at the end as well.
Are there other times that you recommend for desires to reach
out to their clients? It's do you do birthdays or
anniversaries or Anything like that.
So we do further clients, we don't do birthdays and
anniversaries we do like to do off holidays, like right now,
this year, we've done a lot of all gifts that were delivered
through October and the beginning of November in
anticipation of the bigger holiday season but it allows us
to or allows our clients to stand out as opposed to being
like one of ten gifts that they received the December for
Christmas. So we do that and then one thing
that we've tried this year that's been working well is the
what your anniversary gifts to help the client.
Remember how good of an experience they had and how much
they're enjoying their space, that's a great time.
Also for them to be thinking about like maybe I do want to go
ahead and do a phase two or phase three of the project or
refer I think if you can compare the client designer Or a
relationship like a bank account.
You know, you can only do deposits and withdrawals and
during the design process, there's a lot of deposits.
There's like the design presentation.
Everyone is so excited because they finally see visually what
their space will look like and then get in to pick all the
finishes and things like that. And then there are the
withdrawals which are like the shipping delays or deficiencies
after you've waited so long for this item to Man and then
something's wrong with when it comes in.
So the whole goal is to space it out.
Think about it as a long-term investment just gifting in
general as a long-term investment in your business and
in your process and then to stay in the positive, you don't want
to go into the red. And so having the little gifts
that are thrown in at different points, during the process helps
to keep things in Balance. Yeah.
Also, thank yous for referrals are something that we do.
Do with clients, internal team team goes, yeah, very good
thinking about you or things like that.
Good good. Are there other gifting
guideline we should know about? Yeah, so I have a few first
gifting without a strategic plan will lead to and and consistent
a lackluster experience. So you want to have a plan and
we do an annual gift, strategy session with all of our clients
to help put that Plan in place identify recipients, talk
through budget and items that we'd like to gift.
So that it is a more automated easy to manage process, second
is quality over quantity, the good stuff isn't cheap in the
cheap stuff isn't good. Now that said you don't have to
spend $500 per gift, you can make an impression and stay top
of mind with smaller gifts that are personalized to them.
That individual recipient and that really takes into account
what their interests are and things that are useful on a
day-to-day basis. And so, we do make sure that
everything is is high quality, but that doesn't always mean
really expensive and it can even just be a, it can be a card
anniversary card or something. Small just to say that you're
thinking about them and that they're on your mind.
Let's see. Third is so.
Needs another branded mug. And so I think that kind of
speaks to, you know, making things personal eyes and things
that they'll use for equally. We just talked about gifting
during non-peak holidays, allows you to stand out from the crowd.
Lastly, that business is about relationship building, and that
gifting is unconditional, and so it is given with no strings
attached, it's not a quid pro quo, it's really just Seeing
your gratitude and showing someone that you appreciate them
and that you want to give them something something that they'll
enjoy. Yeah.
Sometimes I take a moment to kind of Envision what it is like
going through my company as a client so I'll sit back and I'll
be like okay so they're sending me emails on boring.
I've got this quiz I've got and then they send me a present.
So I just kind of try to think and I think it's a good
recommendation just to see like if you are a client at your own
business, what is Process like and how would you like to
experience all these things and make sure that it's a worthwhile
investment for you. Yeah, I totally agree.
Especially if you're really in tune with who your ideal client
is and what they are like, s people and what they would
appreciate and what you yourself would appreciate.
I think that's a great way to just kind of take a temperature
check for what your client experience looks like currently
and what you could do. Do to improve it.
Yeah. Are there other things that we
should consider to help our businesses grow besides the
intake process and the gifting? Yeah, so for our clients,
depending on the service package that they have, we do help them
and some other areas of their business, that's led to growth.
Like I said in the beginning, we create the marketing collateral
to help educate prospective clients if that's needed for our
clients that have Squarespace site.
We can do updates to make sure like their portfolio images are
always on point and also we like to give them set up on a CRM if
they don't currently have a CRM. And the CRM is so client
relationship manager, and it's a software that helps make
tracking and record-keeping more efficient than spreadsheets.
And it also allows us to introduce some automations into
their process. We've also done market research,
search where we go in and learn more about their competitors in
the market, to understand more about where they are positioned
among other designers in their area.
We partnered with house to increase the effectiveness on
that platform. There are a lot of things that
you can do to your house profile, to make it more
attractive and to get better quality leads coming from that
platform. Form.
And then we've also helped to create strategic partnership
programs that will help lead to more referrals.
So identifying different trades. Real estate companies that our
clients can work with to help start build that relationship,
that will lead to more referrals and doing business together.
You're really good. I know.
I've, I've had you guys reach out to some contractors or my
area as well, because we're always looking to add on to our
a list of contractors because we have a lot of Projects.
Do we need more than one? So yeah.
Yeah. And then for you we did your
client appreciation. 15 year anniversary party is summer,
which is super fun. Yeah, it's so great.
Having you guys organized, all of the catering, the table
rentals and the research in the music and gift bags and
everything. It was just really nice to be
able to hand that over to you and not have to think about all
those details and you thought of so much more than made it, a
better experience than I would have.
And on my own. So that was wonderful.
Well, thank you. It was so fun to do and I know
Jessica enjoyed working on it and that's something else.
Like among our team like we love the details and the planning and
all of the, you know, just coordinating and and serving in
that capacity. So it was really really great
and I'm happy that it was a success.
Yeah, thank you. So any other advice for maybe
New designer starting their business?
Or are you taking on More business right now.
Can everybody reach out to you? Yeah.
CSS I left for y'all to reach out.
We are accepting new clients right now.
I think the one piece of advice and it goes along with a book.
Someone introduced me to earlier this year.
The book is called who not how and the premise is that when we
receive a task or a, or we have a plan that we like to put in
place a lot of I am entrepreneurs get stuck on the
how that it'll, how it'll all come together and where it would
be more effective and useful. If you focus on who you need,
who you can leverage, who do you already know that?
Can help you get it done instead of figuring out how it'll get it
done. Like let the other person figure
out the how and you just focus on getting the who's that can
help you execute. Get your plans.
I that for me hearing that framed in that way was it was
just super super impactful because I A lot of times New
Opportunities, present themselves you immediately go
into like, okay, so how am I going to make this fit?
Like how is this going to work? How am I going to make this fit
into my current business of the current clients?
And, and instead, you know, I now think about like, okay, so
this is this opportunity, who do I need on my Who do I need to
work with to make sure this is successful.
It allows you to take some of the pressure off of yourself to
figure out the actual how that's really good will definitely
include a link to that book in our show notes because I'm going
to go read it myself, it sounds really good.
I listened to it on Audible and it's not a long read but it's
really, really good. Okay.
Thank you for that recommendation.
Yeah, so if people want to check you out, what's your website.
So our website is . The Prototype dotnet.
We also have our Instagram was hacked this year, so we're just
starting to rebuild our Instagram following.
So I'd love for everyone to come and follow at the Prototype
Lifestyle on Instagram. Great.
Yeah. Just come to the website and
there's links to schedule calls and talk with, and there's links
to it, you know, learn more about our services and I just
wish everyone luck as they enter this new path.
It's super exciting and I love working with designers.
It's been a great experience so far.
Great. Well, thank you so much, Porsche
for your Insight and all the great advice that you have and
put all your information in the show notes to people can reach
out to you, and just thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for Becca. Congrats on launching the
podcast. Thank you.
I'll are. Bye.
Wasn't that a great interview? I just love working with Porsha.
She is such a natural at being a support person and I think that
really is one of her best attributes that she is able to
support all of these entrepreneurs and Professionals
in their lives and really understands herself what it is
like to go through that. So she has a great business that
she offers to people and really great opportunity for
outsourcing as you're getting your business started.
This is a place that you might want to.
Do that. So go ahead and check her out.
All of her information is in our show.
Notes are War. Designed.com forward slash
podcast? I'd love to hear your reviews.
If you want to leave me at five star rating and review wherever
you listen to your podcast, I love reading those.
So go ahead and do that. I love to know you're listening
and you can email me if you have a topic that you love me to
cover, or if you'd like to be a guest on the show, go ahead and
email podcasts at our war. Designed.com That's it for me
this week. Next week, I have a whole list
of books that you should be reading for your interior
design, career, and that you're going to put on your wish list
for people to buy you some presents.
So if you're not sure what to tell people, what to get you
listen to next week's episode and then you can tell them, you
want all of these books that are going to help launch your career
and really improve your life. So that's going to be next week
and until then stay. A creative.
Thanks for listening. If you loved this episode,
please leave a rating and a review.
This helps me reach other curious.
Creatives. Like you, if you have a topic
request or would like to contact me, simply head over to my
website, our Ward design.com or email me at podcast at our war
design.com, A creative. Thanks for listening.
If you loved this episode, please leave a rating and a
review. This helps me reach other
curious. Creatives.
Like you, if you have a topic request or would like to contact
me, simply head over to my website, our Ward design.com or
email me at podcast at our war design.com,