Hello and welcome to Episode 4 of Design Curious Podcast.
Today I have a wonderful interview with Suzanne Manlove
and you're going to love this conversation.
She was a graphic designer turned interior designer, and I
just loved her story a little bit about Suzanne.
She founded Man Love and company Interiors in 2007, so her
company's as old as my company. She founded on the heels of a
career in graphic design, and for the last 15 years she's
channeled her artistic vision and management background into
creating truly livable homes for inspired, accomplished
professionals. She loves the hunt for singular
pieces and finding new creative ways to infuse each client's
identity into their home. You can find Suzanne exploring
new cities and art events with her husband Mark, finding her
Zen at yoga and meditation workshops, and getting outside
as much as possible. So grab some coffee and listen
in as we have a great conversation with Suzanne.
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. Hey Suzanne, thank you for being
on Design Curious Podcast. It's great to have you.
Wow, Rebecca. I'm so.
Excited to be here. Thank you.
I'm honored and privileged to be a part of your inaugural
conversations. Yeah, yeah, this is great, Okay.
So I know you, but not everybody else.
So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are,
where your firm is, the name of it all that.
Okay, so my business is man, Love and company Interiors.
And we are based in Arlington, VA So we're right outside of
Washington, DC So we service the DC metro area, so that's
Virginia and Maryland and DC And we also do some luxury vacation
homes on the Eastern Shore and also Virginia's Northern Neck.
So you've got a vacation home? That would also be a great
consideration for us. So we.
Offer a luxury home design for inspired professionals and.
I started the business in 2007 out of my home when my daughter
was in preschool and now my daughter is in university.
So. Long time but it.
Really was a great way to be a professional person and have a
business but also be available for my family, so.
That was. The beginning of it, and now, 15
years later. We have a staff.
Of five people. And my husband Mark also joined
the business about five years ago and he left his corporate
job and is now helping me run the business and and he manages
the operations side and also he has a marketing background.
So he does all the marketing for for man love and company
interiors. So it's really evolved a ton and
is not really. Where I.
Expected it to be 15 years. Later, you know when you start
something, it's. Small and you're just trying to
make it. Through the year and figure.
Out what you're going to do next and and now here we have this
beautiful business with this great team and we're really
transforming people's homes and it's it's pretty incredible to
see how it all has kind of come to pass.
Wow, did you go to school for design and is that how you got
into it? No, and that's why I thought I
could. Be.
Good for your audience. So.
I have a degree. In graphic design, actually.
So I had a career before this career and I was a ultimately I
started out as a designer and I became a creative director and I
had a corporate job and I was doing a lot of photo shoots and
managing A-Team again, but it was more in graphics and print
and digital marketing and then. When I had my second child, my
daughter, so I have a son who's also at university right now.
But when I had two kids, I realized I needed to kind of
make a change so that I could be a little more available for
them, because the corporate job was a lot.
I tried a couple different things, and I tried teaching for
a little while at the Corcoran and DC and I I taught graphic
design. I got my real.
Estate license and I. Worked with a brokerage and kind
of got my. Feet wet with that.
And realized that I really did not like all the paperwork and
all of the weekend showings and all that.
I thought it was going to be a little more flexible, but it
didn't really provide that for me.
But what I did really love with my real estate job was helping
the people get their homes ready to sell.
Yeah, I liked working with the clients, and I liked going into
their homes and figuring out how to make them look better.
And a friend of mine at the time, who had a lot of influence
on me was running a staging business.
And she was. Very successful in her business
in another state, and she recommended that I try a staging
business because she knew I was trying to figure out like what
to do with myself because I knew I needed to.
Start making some money and start running a business of some
sort. But I didn't want to go and work
for someone else anymore because I really wanted that
flexibility. So I decided that I would become
a stager and work with people who were selling their homes and
getting them ready to put on the market.
So I created Arlington Home Interiors, which.
Worked pretty well. And I did a couple of those
staging jobs and I I realized, gosh, I really don't want to be
prepping homes. For them to be sold, I really
would like to be working with people who want to stay in their
homes because then it's a lot more personal.
You know, staging is a great business, but it's more about
kind of depersonalizing a home and also moving really quickly,
spending as little money as possible for the biggest bang.
So it's satisfying in some ways, but it's not really the
lifestyle business that I wanted, so I just decided that I
was going to be. A decorator and designer like
pretty much. OK, well I'm doing.
Graphic design, I can do interiors, they're not that
different. I was doing 2D space and now I
can work in a 3D space and I will.
Figure. It out I will learn.
So that's after 16 years in like a corporate setting.
So I had a lot of project management skills.
I knew I worked really well with people and I loved meeting new
people. I knew that I could manage.
A team, because I had been doing that for a long time, so I just
kind of jumped in with both feet.
Wow. And what I think so interesting
about this industry, and a lot of my colleagues in this area is
so many of them, so many of them did go to school and that's
great that they had the foresight to do that when they
were 18 or 22 or 32 or whenever they went back to school, but so
many of them. Came from somewhere else.
Came from PR or marketing or business management, like lots
of different backgrounds. And then they started doing
this, so it's not necessarily the smoothest.
Path. Being a decorator, but it is.
A path, yeah. And it worked for me.
It definitely. You know you never.
Know where you're gonna end up. They were good.
But it was definitely the real estate path.
And then the staging was a. Stepping stones for me to get to
here, how was your mindset as you were launching into being
interior decorator? But did you have confidence in
your design abilities or I mean because he had graphic design so
you knew you had an eye and all that.
But as far as like getting the client and selling your design
to them and having them spend all this money, did you have the
confidence there when you jumped in with both feet?
No, not necessarily. I think that it grew as I did
more things, one of the things that I did.
To. Help me with the pieces that I
didn't know was I created a. Group of designers.
I met a lot of people and I love meeting new people and making
friends. And it was really an exciting
new time because it was a whole new career and let me learn all
about furniture and go to the showrooms and go to the design
center parties and and really pick up as much as I could.
And I created a coffee. Group of designers to get
together and talk about work and talk about vendors and contracts
and how we were. Doing what we needed to do and
everybody that I invited it was somebody who had more experience
than I did. So I was able to surround myself
with this wonderful group of ladies who would could really
support me in moving through learning of the business.
And and I think that was a that was a big piece of it was
creating the resources so that I had people to ask the questions
for and then I also. I hired a couple coaches.
Actually, the first coach I hired was more and I know you
are a coach. Advocate as well, so.
Understand where I'm coming from.
With this but the. First coach that I hired was
somebody to really help me transition my lifestyle from
being. I had been home for more than a
year as a stay at home mom and how to transition from that to a
business owner and what did that look like running it out of my
own home? So it was more life coaching.
I'm looking at how do I manage my day and how do I get to sit
at my desk in the morning instead of doing laundry and
unloading the dishwasher. And like getting into the
mindset of being a business owner, which I think really
contributes a lot to your confidence with everything.
So that was really, really helpful.
To work through. Some of those barriers that I
might have had and some of those ideas that I wasn't good enough
or. Impostor syndrome, because I
didn't have the degree and I think also just starting smaller
and then building up and doing a little bit more every time.
So the first few years I did a ton of color consults and I did
a lot of like room in a day sort of projects where I would go.
To a client's home who needed help and I would spend 2 hours
and I would just download everything I could think of
that. They could do.
To improve their dining room and their family room and you know
draw sketches and look up things really quickly at pottery barns
website and like give them some tangible ideas that they could
then execute themselves moving furniture around so very much
like on the fly figure. It out as you go.
But what I learned from that was that I already had so much more
knowledge. Than.
These people who hired me had so they were benefiting from the
experience that I had and and from my ideas and so that gave
me the confidence to build on that and then delve into like oh
let me figure out window treatments and how am I going to
do that. And then let me ask my friend
who has a great workroom and maybe I can start working with
her workroom and they can teach me some things and.
You know, it just really builds on top of the other pieces and
it's just kind of foundational and before you know it you're
doing whole houses. So it just.
It takes time but. I've been doing this for 15
years now, so it's a. Long path.
But there's been growth every year for sure.
Yeah, wow. Yeah, that's really incredible.
And I think actually whether you have the degree or not, you
still face that imposter syndrome like you're starting
out like can I call myself a designer even though I have a
degree in it? Everybody faced that.
But I think it was really smart of you to get that lifestyle
mindset, coaching early on so that you can have the right
attitude, like I can do attitude to learn the things that you
didn't know. Absolutely.
I. Do think mindset is such a big
piece of it and. That's a lot of the things that
we even explore today when we go to retreats together and we work
with coaches. It's all about what you believe.
You can do. And then of course also
following through on it and doing an excellent job bringing
in the right people and and you know following through on on
being successful and what your commitment is, but.
I think that you have to have the mindset first, yeah, to get.
And that's where I feel like the coaching piece has been a really
integral part of my growth personally.
So definitely would recommend that for anyone who's kind of
trying to figure out what to do with else.
Yeah. And.
And another interesting aspect you have is that your husband is
a part of your company now and does he also have a like are you
the visionary for your company or does he also want to kind of
grow it and see where it can go? It's definitely a collaborative
effort to. To.
Plan every year we get together and actually plan like an off
site where the two of us will go somewhere and work on the
business. And of course explore wherever
we are that's beautiful and go on nice meals and things like
that. But we we set our goals for the
year and then we have business meetings where we revisit those
goals throughout the year to see how we're doing against them.
I would say I'm more of the dreamer of the couple and he's
more the the practical planner. And so there's a good.
Kind of yin Yang compliment there.
To get the work done. So I'm always pushing for more
like well what we did this and let's try this and and he's more
the reality and also because he's more managing, I mean we
manage the funds together, but he's really looking at the
budget all the time and and doing all the accounting.
There's a good balance there too on like what's realistic and
what can we set a goal for, for the future or for six months
from now? So yeah, it's it's definitely
joint. Yeah, I'm sure 15 years ago he
didn't envision himself working at interior design firm.
No, no. And then I was looking more I
think to my peers and the business stuff and the planning
cuz he had his own business and career that he was working on.
You know, we'd get together at the end of the day and talk
about what was going on kind of more like that, but not as much
in the way that we would do it now, right?
Yeah, He has an inside look at everything.
Yes, yes. But we work pretty
independently. I think that especially with
being with somebody that's married to, it's really good to
each kind of have your own track on what you're doing so that
it's we're not together constantly.
Like, he's in his office, not mine, and it works out really
well. So when you go to hire designers
now for your own firm, are you looking for them to have degrees
in design or because you don't have one yourself?
Are you more open to seeing the possibilities?
Or as a as a businessman, how do you, what's your perspective on
that? That is a really fascinating
question. We did just hire somebody who
has a degree. Yeah.
And then our other designer also has a degree.
I think that it would really depend.
I think in the case of me coming from another industry, I was the
only one. So I was figuring out as I moved
along and grew. I think for like hiring a
designer, it was important to us to have somebody who had design
experience. So it was not critical that they
had a degree, but it was critical.
That they had experience and that they had been in an office
performing the duties that we wanted them to perform.
That they could come in and be ready to go and yes, learn about
our process and our ways, but not I'm not going to train them
how to do interior design. So I think that that was
important, but that experience could have come from another job
that then turned into a design job at another place and then
they came to me, But you know, definitely we were hiring for a
more senior level. We needed that time already in
place. But I definitely would be open
to bring on somebody like we hired an operations assistant.
Who? Didn't work an interior design
firm before. And.
Have a degree in that, but she's doing a lot of different support
roles for us, including doing all of our our CAD drawings.
She came from a different entity, but she's a great hire.
We're thrilled to have her. So it just kind of depends on.
How people fit and and what the job description is really,
whether right. If it's a senior job, then they
would need that time, right? Right.
For sure. Yeah.
It's just interesting. I wanted to get your take on it
because some of the people that I mentor, they are, you know,
they've already gone to college and they don't necessarily want
to go back to school to get their design degree.
So they're trying to figure out how they can work for a designer
without having that degree or, you know, maybe necessarily the
experience. So often they'll start as an
intern or an assistant or something like that and work
their way up. But, and I suppose that could
happen in your firm as well. Absolutely, and I think that
there may be some tools that they would need to learn.
To really? Ultimately do the design
position like learn? CAD.
Yeah. But those are.
All trainable. So if you.
If you have a desire, you can. Figure it out.
You can learn it. You could do classes at night.
You know, it's there's definitely a lot of different
ways to get those skills. And I think the Handson piece is
so important. We have an intern right now who
just graduated with her inter design degree from VCU.
She's in our office doing all the things we need her to do and
it's going to give her a really good sense of what her next step
might be, whether she wants to do residential or commercial.
She helps us with presentation, She helps us with CAD.
Filing like, it's just every single thing you could ever
imagine, but that's really a great way to get your feet wet
and see what it feels like to even be in that environment.
She also has organized our storeroom and all of our samples
and she's going to run to the stores and pick up some
accessories for us later this. And I think that that's a good
stepping stone for the next thing because now she can say
I've had this experience with Man Love and Company Interiors
and I'll write a nice referral letter for her and that's going
to be a great piece for her. So I think that it's definitely
an important step. I think is just getting in the
environment. Yeah, for sure.
What would you say it was the most challenging part of the
career for you as you were learning your way through it?
Good. I think the confidence piece is
always in the background when you're moving up to the next
level, because I'm always trying to grow and learn more and
stretch myself. And so there's sometimes things
I'm doing that I've not done before or it's a home that's
bigger than we've ever touched before or we're working with
some unique design need that it's like, well, that's
interesting. I've never.
Actually done this. Let me figure out how we're
going to do it and so. You have to really believe that
you have good systems in place and good support and that you
can achieve it. So there's always that
confidence thing in the background and I definitely have
grown a ton in that arena and I feel, I feel very confident now.
But it's always. I don't know.
I think that's always lingering in the background.
And that's why I like coaching a lot, because it helps me get
through the hurdles. I think another piece that is
challenging and I know in talking to my colleagues that
this comes up for everybody is just really managing clients
expectations and talking to them right now about how it may be a.
Year from beginning to end of the furniture actually arriving
whereas before it might have been six months and just kind of
set up what to expect from us and our organization and how
we're going to build and all of that.
I think that is a part that we are constantly improving and
working on. How are we going to communicate
this and what's in our script and what's our messaging and and
just being consistent with that. I think that's another one, But
that we've learned a lot and we've grown a lot, and it's
really satisfying to listen to a podcast about design or read a
book or something and be able to check off the boxes and say, OK,
we do that now, OK, we've got that figured.
Out, whereas maybe five years ago we weren't doing like weekly
reports and now we do weekly reports to our clients.
And so there's there's a lot of growth.
I think the human tendency is to look at what we're lacking and
not to look at how we've grown. So I try to stop and recognize
the development there too, so that it's not just like how can
we do better or we're too small or whatever about the growth
piece. And surrounding yourself with
people. You, Rebecca, Who are also
growing and reaching and silly stretching is really satisfying
and and that's another thing that I like to do, is to be with
other, you know, female entrepreneurs who are really
pushing themselves and that I feel like I'm with my people and
so I don't feel uncomfortable. Right.
Yeah, I'm, I'm so such a collaborative person that I'm
like bring you know we all work with individual firms.
It's like we all are kind of in this together, you know like
yes, the rising tide, you know with all the boats.
So it's just a great, great advice to reach out to those
that are around you are like minded and try to really connect
with them and you'll be growing together side by side.
Yes, yes. And so like local organizations
and coaching groups and things like that is a great place to
find that sort of support. That's really that was like an
intentional thing that I've been doing the last few years is
finding more business owners like myself to connect with.
So that. I can have people who stretch me
more and then like if I see you doing something then I think, Oh
well, I can try that too because she did it and it worked out for
her or she's charging that out so I can check that amount.
And it's not a competition. It's more just like believing it
and seeing it. That really helps me, right?
And I like that collaboration for sure.
Yeah. I think that is a shift from
when we started even like 15 years ago that designers are
willing to. Share all that information with
each other, what they're charging, cuz I I feel like
before a lot of designers would just have their blinders on and
just work in their own space and this is what I do.
This is how I work with clients. But not comparing at all what
they're doing with other designers around them, no.
And I feel like some of that may have changed, even with social
media and podcasts, cuz I know so many of us are listening to
the same podcasts and they're talking about all these things
and how to run a business and pricing.
And then you bring in somebody and you ask them questions and
you like I'll hear something on a podcast.
And I'll think, oh, I'm going to try that with my business
because this person did it and it was successful for them.
So there's an openness there that didn't exist before
because. I think we just know it was out
there. It was not those environments to
share that information. So that's not to say there's
probably still some designers that are more quiet or closed
about the way that they work. Yeah.
But I feel like there have been so many people in in in the DC
area that I really connected with.
It's been really great. Going back to your story, I
thought something about how you know you were in graphic design
and then you eventually transition to interiors because
you're looking for that flexibility as a mother and
working out of your home and things like that, did it not?
Appeal to you to start a like an independent graphic design
company that would maybe have also afforded that flexibility.
I had done graphics for about 16 years and I had really moved
into management, so I was more the vision again and the art
direction, but I wasn't actually implementing myself.
Anymore, I was not sitting at the computer and in design and
like laying out things. I was working with the client
and then bringing it back to my team and saying okay, this is
the plan, this is what we're going to do.
And. That's basically what I do now.
I go out and I I get the work and I meet with clients and I
get really excited about the potential of the transformation
and I learn more about their lifestyle and their collections
and and what they do with their families and their vacations and
all of that. And then I'm able to translate
that into the space and so I work with my.
Team to kind of make all their dreams come true in that
respect. So it's a similar role, but just
in a different medium. Right.
And also you have the autonomy as the business owner.
Take time off for your kids when you want to.
Yes, yes. And things have changed.
Of course the kids have grown and they're at school now and
Mark and I have time to really dedicate to the business.
So it's we're entering a different phase of our lives
right now where we're entering nesters for the first time and
we're figuring out how to work hard and be successful and also
how to take the time off when we want to to go and rest and play.
The nice thing about interiors is that you can go somewhere and
it can still be a your work when you're looking at a beautiful
hotel or you're traveling and you're seeing amazing arts and
architecture and buildings. And I think that that is
actually really important part of our work to get that
stimulation and that exposure because then we can take that
and bring that back into our work.
So travel and going pretty places and all of that is
actually really important I think, so that we don't get
stagnant and stale. Yeah, for sure.
Travel is always inspiring to me Like like, oh, I never thought
about this or you know, just exposes you to so much more that
you can then bring it back. Because how many times have we
had clients who also have been traveling?
And they're like I stayed in this hotel and I saw this light
fixture and you know I'd love to have that in my house type of a
thing. So absolutely.
For sure. So yeah, that's a nice it's,
it's not an excuse. It actually really helps the
business to be able to get out there and see other beautiful.
So I. Feel like there was in some ways
the translation in role from graphics.
To interiors wasn't that difficult for me in terms of my
skill set. It was more about learning the
furniture industry and the trades.
And learning like window treatments and window treatments
were challenging in the beginning because I had never
done anything like that before. But I'm really good at calling
on experts to help me. And so if you have somebody who
does really good windows, those, that's the person you call.
And then you find a really good tile person and a great general
contractor. And then your job becomes so
much easier because you can trust and believe in the people
that you're hiring to work with you and do a great job.
Right. Do you have any other advice
you'd like to give someone starting out in interior design?
Yeah, you don't have. To have like a design degree so.
I think figuring out how to transition into it is more of
the the approach and like what's the best way.
But I think that you definitely don't have to have that and and
I think that you you don't have to know.
Everything like I was talking about calling on your experts to
help you I feel. Like people feel like they have
to have everything all figured out and you can give yourself
the time and grace to learn things if you have people that
you can lean on to support you. So you're not going to know
everything on the first day. And I didn't know everything at
all at all on the first day. But there's, you know, baby.
Steps like the doing the paint consults first, because I felt
confident with that and getting to know people and getting to
know their homes and they're just building slowly.
So I think that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have it
all figured out in the beginning and.
Especially people who are drawn to this field, we tend to be a
little more perfectionistic and we want it to be perfect in the
beginning, but there's just stages and it's it's gradual.
So you're not going to just snap your fingers and be doing a 6000
square foot house, but give it time and.
You will grow and learn and every year can be better than
the year before and that's how it worked for me and I do
believe in coaching. I think that's a.
Big part of kind of fast tracking your experiences so
that you're not having to learn everything from the ground up.
There's a lot of people out there who are willing to share
their experience with you and help you get to the solution a
lot faster. And I think coaching
specifically and interior design can really help you with that.
And then it also really helps you with the mindset, which I
think is kind of the key to like succeeding in anything is the
right mindset. For sure.
So that was like 4 things.
Yeah, that's great. I have a lot to say.
That's great. Is there anything else that you
wanted to touch on before we wrap?
No, I think I kind of covered the big moments.
I definitely would invite your audience to come and check out
our website if they want to at manloveandcove.com it's MANL.
OVE and if you hear this and have any questions or anything,
I'd be happy to respond. So you can just send a note
through the website. And we'd love to hear about
different people who are trying out this field and and you know
what they they have any questions about, you know, what
we're doing or any of that stuff, I'd be happy to respond.
And can they find you on Instagram too?
Yes, manloveandcompany.com for sure.
That would be great too to check it out.
Yeah, I always like to look up people after I hear them talk.
So that I can learn more about their business.
So yeah, you're welcome. We would love that.
Yeah. And we'll include those links in
the show notes as well, so everybody can find that easily
if they're driving right now and yeah.
Well, thank you so much. Just wonderful talking to and
hearing your story. I actually didn't know that you
were a graphic designer first, so.
That's great. I went a lot today.
Oh good. I'm so glad.
It was really fun. Rebecca and I wish you the most
success in this. I think it's going to be awesome
and I'm going to add you to my. Podcast playlist so we can geek
out on all the podcasts together.
Awesome. Thanks so much.
Yeah, that'll be great. Well, thank you.
All right. Bye.
So wasn't that great?
I just loved talking with Suzanne.
She and I have been friends for several years, and it's always
so fun to catch up with her. She's an inspiration to me in
her desire to improve her business and grow, and it's fun
to have a colleague who's on the same path with you, and Suzanne
is like that for me. So I hope you enjoyed the
conversation with her as much as I did.
Again, if you want to check out her company, Man Love and Co,
you can find all the links in the show notes and that will be
on my website rwarddesign.com and I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening. If you love 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
rwarddesign.com or e-mail me. At podcast at R wardesign com.