Hello, and welcome to design. Curious podcast.
This is episode 31, and I am Rebecca Ward, your host and
Mentor. Today, we are talking about the
value of being coached and I have a lot of experience in
being coached over the last several years. 10 years, maybe a
really hiring coaches and seeing the benefit that they have done
for my business. So I'm going to get all into
Ooh, that in the episode. And I want to remind you, we
have some free downloads for you.
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started out in my career as an interior designer so you can
find out what those three things are and also the roadmap for
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To hear on this podcast. All right, so let's get into the
topic of coaching. 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. I know.
Notebook, and let's dig into today's episode.
When I was young, I was always hesitant about asking for help
even in high school. Like if I needed help with a
subject, I was afraid to ask because I think that would be
admitting to myself that I was not good at it.
And so instead of seeing it as like, oh, I don't know how to do
this. Well I need an expert to show me
how to do it better. I looked at it more from a
shaming aspect of like I should know how to do this and I don't
and I I'm afraid to ask for the help.
Fortunately, I did not struggle too much in school, but there
was a few subjects that I definitely should have gotten
tutoring in and I didn't. And so I definitely grew from
that point because now, I am always asking for help and
offering help to other people. So, in my path to becoming an
independent interior designer, I was first starting out on my own
around 2008, when blogging was really starting to take off.
I think it wasn't something that every single designer was doing,
yet I had a colleague who had a very successful and popular
blog. And so, it inspired me to start
a blog and I'm always like an early adopter.
I say not the earliest of adapters, but I am an early
adapter to see like, oh, this person is doing really well at
this. Maybe I should try it myself.
So since I had a lot of more time, as I was only self
employed in, 2009. I started taking a course called
blogging your way and it was the first time I had actually taken
a online course or been a part of a group coaching program that
I really discovered the benefits of that type of product.
Where it's one too, many the coaches, helping a lot of
people, she did give some direct feedback to each of us
eventually her or her partner, who is also running the course.
But it was really beneficial, just to have that generic
knowledge that they were giving out.
So that kind of opened my eyes to to understanding that I can
learn things virtually first of all and that there's experts out
there who I can learn from to make my craft better and so
blogging was one of them and I really enjoyed doing that for a
long time. We still have a Blog but it is
definitely not as much of a big deal as it was Around two
thousand nine and so, after a few years, I decided I could
maybe learn a little bit more about running my design business
because I was still struggling to really know if I was doing it
the right way. I was charging hourly by wasn't
charging for all of my hours and I wasn't charging a high enough
price. So the first coaching program
that I became a part of, this coach was promoting flat fees
and especially during the Great. Session.
It was a lot harder for people to hire designers because it's
such a luxury business in the clients that I were working with
word. We're not very high end.
It was helpful for me that this coach promoted the idea of
charging a flat fee per room, which turned out was a lot more
than I had been asking people in charging people.
For even though I would say in hindsight this is definitely
not. It wasn't a good.
Model for the long run, what it was really good for was asking
for a lot of money up front from the client and having them say,
yes. So it was a good practice for me
to say, like, okay, this design is going to cost five thousand
dollars for these three rooms. And this is what's included.
Does that work for you? The client would say yes, here's
your five thousand dollars up front.
And so getting that much money up front was a gradual way for
me to understand the worth and the valley that is bringing.
And just In for those numbers, money is hard and sometimes they
get up hung up on your own money issues, you're imposing them on
your clients, they might not have the same money issues and
so it was really good practice for me to set it up that way.
But then after a while I finding that I wasn't actually making
enough money with that model and that was putting a lot more into
my designs, then I was actually charging for.
So that's when I discovered Kimberly Selden in business of
design and I got her books and I started implementing slowly and
then I kind of didn't for a little while, I just kind of did
my own thing. But I started I went back to the
hourly and I always charged for my initial consultation because
I was with asid and that's something that they definitely
promote within the organization that you charge for your initial
consultation because you're a professional and your time is
Abel. I'm sure I was only charging
like $100 or something for two hours but it was a start.
So I was doing that, I was charging hourly, but not for all
my hours by did increase my price and start to set up some
procedures after learning about the business of design.
And then one day, I actually discovered podcast, and I think
it has started with ads listening to NPR and they had a
certain podcast that's are listening to And then I'm like
what our podcast and what kind of subject matter out there.
And then I'm like, oh, Kimberly has a podcast on interior design
business practices and so I've been judged that for weeks and
really got fired up to start implementing her program.
I signed up for business of design and really have seen.
I still continue as a member today and I'm in there
Mastermind program and is just been so beneficial all the
things that She has helped me along the way with my systems
and procedures and business practices and then introducing
me to other designers who have similar problems and we can
learn from each other. So, like I said, I still do
that. But then along the way, right
before the pandemic, I think it was in 2019.
I started listening to Toby fairley's podcast and getting
curious about her coaching program because What was
attracting me to her coaching program was that she was talking
about designers having a scalable offer?
And I think that especially for years ago this was something new
for designers to think about one too many approach.
I mean there was always easy design but I really wasn't
interested in edesign per se and it's something I've offered on
and off through the past. But What was really interesting
to me was that she was commenting on how the industry
is Shifting. And that designers really need
to be thinking about scalable model, they can't always rely on
the one-to-one, business practices, and there's more
things that you can offer as a designer that can help you to
increase your bottom line. And so I sent for it to sign
you. And I really enjoyed her digital
marketing for creatives program. That's in there.
And that is why when 20/20 hit the pandemic, we all closed
down. I was primed and ready to create
a course that I could put out there even though it wasn't able
to meet with clients one-on-one, as able to Market to more people
and have a course that was available for them to purchase
ready to go. So that first course, is called
Home Design coach, and it is for the consumer who is kind of a
DIY once to design the room. Like Pro and has some talent but
maybe doesn't have the budget to hire a designer.
So this kind of teaches them the skills that they need to get
their house looking like a designer came through, but is
actually them and it's a learnable skill that they can
transfer to their next house. And so we had many people come
through that and is quite successful.
I created another course, called shifting spaces.
And this is also for the consumer.
This course is to help the consumer understand what it is.
It is, they need out of their home and the shifting
circumstances in their life might cause their home to need
to change and really to understand what it is.
They want out of their home before they even meet with a
designer or before they even meet with a realtor to buy a new
house. This is a course that's really
helpful for them to kind of get a list of things that they want
out of their home and really evaluate.
If they are getting the most out of their current place or if
they need to remodel or move, so that's shifting spaces.
Then of course, in that time I also started my design mentor
and that was in 2021 and that just came out of the idea
because I was constantly being solicited by students or
potential designers looking to get into the industry and they
would ask it. Can we go for coffee?
Do you have like an hour? I can call you on the phone.
Can you answer this email of like 20 questions that I have
about the car? Career.
And I was doing this over and over and it was just taking too
much time away from my projects and wasn't always able to
accommodate their request. And so I was thinking well
wouldn't it be great if I could do kind of a one-to-many
approach here? Help the people to answer their
questions and meet with them once a month, if they want to,
and have a lot of resources for them to on their own, even
discover, if it's the right career for them through, My
design mentor and so that was how that was born and and I
definitely would correlate that to to Toby fairley's design.
You as the impetus for me even thinking in that direction and
then of course this podcast even came out from there as an Avenue
to reach more people about the career.
All of that to say I probably wouldn't have done that without
the coaching that had gotten from.
Um, Toby fairley's program and from the life coaches that she
has in there working on mindset and everything like that.
And speaking of life coaching, I remember the first time I heard
about a colleague, having a life coach, and the misconceptions
that I had around life coaching, I was, I remember thinking at
the time, why would anybody need or want a life?
Coach like someone to tell them what to do in their life?
And that, of course, is not what a life coach does.
All coaches are going to ask you the hard questions and help you
get to the point of answering them for yourself.
So really life coaching, which is what is also kind of offered
through the design, you program. I worked with some life coaches
in there and I found it. So beneficial really to just
identify the mindsets that were holding me back in my business
and how to recognize them, replace them with positive. -
outlooks positive mindsets things that are going to help me
move towards success instead of hinder me.
And so now I can completely understand life coaching and
that probably everybody needs some life coaching every so
often because we always have something that's holding us back
and it's good to analyze what it is you're thinking and have
someone else kind of iterate it back to you.
So you can say like oh no, that actually isn't positive for you
that In a good thing, that's not gonna that's going to keep you
from going forward in your business.
And so, yeah, life coaching is also a great great experience
that I've learned along the way. And so then, I guess I have
become a very coachable person and I've changed over the years,
obviously, since high school and I have no problem asking for
help. And of course, for the podcast,
I went through Bethany reads course and Coaching program that
she has for podcast and she was on episode 18, if you missed
her, go back and listen to that. If you have any interest in
messaging, or branding or even having a podcast yourself,
you're going to want to reach out to her.
And so all that to say that I think coaching is amazing.
That I don't think that you can really go from beginner to
successful experience person without the help of Coach.
At least you can't do it very quickly.
So a coach can definitely fast-track your experience now.
Next week, I'm going to have an interview with a coach who we
discussed that exact fact that that coaching can really fast
track your path to success. And so all that to say that is
the value of coaching. And so I would say do it.
I thinking about the career, you can start off with With my
design Mentor, it's definitely. I've created to be like the
first step on your coaching plan because if you're anything like
me you you need kind of baby steps into coaching I think.
So let's hope the mentorship really and we talk about this
next week. It how the difference between a
mentorship and coaching, but I really think the mentorship is a
good stepping stone on your way to these more robust coaching
programs. And if you are interested in
going, Straight to the coaching programs.
That is great too. I have links for those in the
show notes and you can click on those and sign up for all of
those programs. So I know it sounds like I have
a million coaches and can there be too many coaches at one time?
I would say? Yes, I'm definitely.
I think at my limit of being in coaching programs and, you know,
just having the time to be coached and implement the things
that I'm learning from my coaches.
So, I learned that I had to set limits on that as well, because
I am multi passionate and just interested in personal growth
and and in growth of my company. And I'm always looking for ways
to fast-track that and to make it the best it can be.
And I know coaching is such a pivotal part of that, but I do
have to limit myself on that sometimes, with my three to four
coaches that I work with now. So, that being said, if you
would like to get baby steps into being coach, you can join
my design Mentor, link is in the show notes and I would love to
have you in there and just kind of introduce you to the Whole
world of coaching and learning from someone else to get you
going on your way. And then I also have the links
for the other programs that I belong to if that's something
that you'd like to join as well. I have affiliate links in there
for you and they'll know that you came from from me and from
the design, curious podcast, and that will kind of give you a leg
up so that they know that you are a qualified person ready to
be coached. So, go ahead and check out those
links in the show. Show notes and I'm so glad
you're here and you're staying here for all the great.
In a reason topics, I have to come to help you understand if
interior design is the career for you.
So until next time, stay 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.
Or email me at podcast at our war design.com.