Hello and welcome to episode 151 of Design Curious Podcast.
I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
Today on the podcast, we're continuing in our series of
mindset shifting. This is the third installment of
that. And today we're talking about
going from being the creative in your company to the CEO and
learning to think like a business owner.
Most interior designers are are also business owners, but not
everyone. But we're going to address those
who are today, and we are going to help designers shift from
seeing themselves not only as the creatives, but to fully step
into their CEO roles by embracing leadership, strategy,
financial awareness, Envision building as essential and
empowering parts of the job. Don't be intimidated by the fact
that you might need to see yourself as ACEO.
And that's what this whole episode is about.
Is that mindset shift gonna get you over that hump so that you
can have a very successful, profitable business that
supports the life that you want, the life that you're designing
for yourself? Before we get into the episode,
I want to remind you we have some great downloads for you in
the show notes. We have three things I wish I'd
known before starting my career in interior design.
I talk about those three things, and then we also have a quiz for
you. You can find out more about my
design Mentor, which is my online mentorship platform that
gives you both education and support as you're starting out
your career. OK, now let's get into the
episode. 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 So if you love the
creative side of design, as we all do, we wouldn't be in this
if we didn't. But maybe you're feeling
overwhelmed by business decisions.
You're not alone. But here's the truth.
The most successful designers aren't just artists, they're
leaders. And here's the great news.
You can be both a leader and a creative.
Imagine that. OK, so we have talked about
building a business that supports the life that you're
designing, designing a life that you love.
We've talked about shifting your mindset on being the expert and
showing up at your initial consultations to secure that
project and give the client confidence.
So now you have the project, you've got to run your business.
And so let's talk about the whole part of the business and
running your show like ACEO. First of all, why are creatives
resistant to having ACEO role in their company?
Most common things that designers might say is that I'm
not a numbers person. I'm terrible with numbers or
accounting. I just want to design.
I don't want to manage anybody. I don't want to be in the weeds
about running the business or business is boring or confusing
or overwhelming. So what happens when you have
these mindsets going on in the background of being an A
designer that runs their own business?
The result can be burnout. Don't love that undercharging?
Well, that's very common. And chaos behind the scenes.
Maybe you've had this experience, You stepped into a
project that a previous designer had been working on and the
client just couldn't handle it anymore because there was so
much chaos going on in that designer's process that they
would meet with the client and then they'd meet with them five
more times to decide the tile. And then they wouldn't hear from
the designer for four weeks. And then they'd get a bill for
$5000 and all of a sudden that they're ready for the
consultation. So there's chaos going back and
forth. There's no system, no
communication. And unfortunately, that is a
common path for creatives to fall into.
So many creatives don't like to be confined or controlled by
systems and organizing. They feel the chaos.
A lot of times they'll say the chaos helps them to be more
creative. And sometimes, I don't know,
sometimes I think I've heard an expression where if you have a
messy desk, that means that you're creative on the inside or
something like that. However, having been in this
business for 18 years, my experience has shown me that
having systems in a clear, easy process that you run your
project every single time is the winning strategy for profit, for
not getting burned out and overwhelmed and to enjoy your
career and to have your clients enjoy the process.
That's what we're talking about today, that being ACEO is not a
role that you earned someday. It's a hat that you can put on
today and you can have that company that you love, that your
clients love. And maybe if you have employees,
they're definitely going to love that too.
OK, so let's put on our CEO hats.
The core mindset to adopt is having a visionary think.
Well, there's there's several mindsets, I guess here.
So you want to have visionary thinking, which means you need
to see the big picture and plan ahead.
This should not be news for us as designers, as creatives.
We can see a client's house completely transformed in our
minds the moment we step into the house, and you can visualize
it to the NTH degree. And then of course, it's
communicating that to the client.
But we have such an ability to visualize and casting a vision
for that house, for that client, for that project.
So why can we not apply this to our business?
Well, there's no reason why not to.
So first of all, see the big picture.
Treat your business like a project.
Where do you want to take care of business?
What should the end goal look like?
What do you want your business to look like?
5 years, 10 years? I mean, maybe you've just
started out and you want to do this for another 30 years.
Let's plan ahead, have that vision, and then you start
working backwards and creating structure just like you would a
design project. OK, so let's have visionary
thinking. Let's also have decision making
confidence. How do you have decision making
confidence? You have to trust your data, but
also your instincts of where you want to take your business,
right? But the data is going to show
you much more than what you feel like is happening in your
business. You're going to look at your
profit and loss statement and that's going to show you
actually how much money you made the last year.
And not that like, oh, I feel like I didn't make anything.
And you look at your profit and loss like, hey, you actually had
a quite a bit of profit. Or the opposite could also be
true. Your feelings about your
business aren't necessarily accurate.
It's the data about your business or how many leads are
you getting, How many of those are turning into consultations?
But then more importantly, as we talked about last time, how many
consultations are converting into projects?
So that kind of data helps to drive decisions and gives you
confidence moving forward. OK.
Another mindset we need to adopt is leadership really important.
We are all leaders. Leadership means that you have
influence over someone. So whether it is A-Team member
and maybe it's not even an employee, maybe it is a
contractor or subcontractor that you're working with or another
designer that you collaborate with.
You can have leadership in that relationship or indefinitely
like we talked about last week, having leadership with the
client because you are the expert and you can lead them
through the project. You can guide them like Obi Wan
to a beautiful finished project. So you are leading whether you
like it or not. People are looking at you for
leadership. So you need to adopt A
leadership mindset. And then most importantly for
being a business owner is financial ownership.
So you need to know your numbers.
They are the fuel, not the fear in your business.
You shouldn't have a fear of numbers.
You should look at them as a fuel to getting you to where you
want to be. 1020, thirty years out in your business.
Financial ownership is golden for CEO mindset.
It is, I will be honest, something that I ignored for
probably the first 5-6 seven years of my business.
I mean, I had an idea of what I was bringing.
I had no vision as to how much, I was like, yeah, I'll just make
as much as I can, which was way too open-ended.
I had nothing to analyse or look at.
I didn't look to see that, oh, I'm under charging for this or
oh, I didn't make enough profit on that type of a project.
Maybe I shouldn't do that project again.
So I had my head in the sand, I would say, for the first part of
my career. And like I've said before, I
didn't seek out coaching. I didn't seek out any mentorship
in my early days. I just went off of previous
places that I had worked before and kind of guessed at what they
had been doing in their business and tried to adopt that.
I had some books, Of course, the Internet was just getting up and
running as far as the research. So I'd go get books and maybe
talk to a few people who might have told me the truth or might
have just pretended that they're doing well too when they
weren't. But I couldn't have a lot of
great financial advice. I probably got the most from
networking groups that I belonged to where there was an
insurance agent, there was a financial bookkeeper and people
who was like, oh, hey, you actually need to set up your
books this way so that you can run your numbers at the end of
the year and not just have a spreadsheet.
So I kind of baby stepped into my CEO mindset and it really
doesn't have to be that way. I'm sure I would have been
farther along in my journey had I even set out to have a vision
to plan from the get go. But no, my, my vision was very
short sighted. I just wanted to have my own
business. I wanted to make some money and
that was about it. So don't be like me.
Learn from my mistakes. And that's why you're here,
right? So learn to love your profit
margins. Don't be scared by these
financial terms. They're just a new language per
SE. Designers might talk about
elevations and floor plans and section cuts or something like
that. People might not know what we're
talking about, so it's just learning that vocabulary.
Profit margins, project forecasting.
If it is overwhelming to you, then hire someone to help you
with it. Get some financial coaching, Get
a financial advisor, get a mentor, get a coach in design or
business and that is going to get you over that hump of being
intimidated by the numbers. So put on that hat.
What are some practical shifts to step into this role?
Well, you're going to want to schedule CEO time every week to
review your goals, your finances, your strategy.
You can't just be in the project all the time.
You actually have to take some time during the week to run your
business as well. You have to make sure you're
billing and getting paid, but you also need to be filing your
taxes. There's a lot of things that go
along with owning a business, but if you schedule it weekly,
then it's very manageable as opposed to putting it off and
then at the end of the year or will come tax time and you're
trying to do all those things, it's definitely going to be
overwhelming. So set weekly time to review
your goals, your finances, your strategies for your business.
Get help where you're weak. So understand if you're not
great with numbers, get a bookkeeper.
Well, do that anyway. I don't think that designer
needs to be their own bookkeeper.
Get your systems in place, hire a virtual assistant.
We've recently talked with Ranisha about having a virtual
assistant in all areas of your design business.
So you can listen to that episode and hire one if you need
it. You can use tools that make you
feel in control, so spreadsheets, dashboards of
different softwares or even sticky notes if that's what you
need. You need something tangible and
you need a wall of sticky notes to remind you.
Whatever your system that works for your brain, do that and
create systems so that you're not reinventing the wheel every
time. For the longest time, I had no
standard operating procedures or SO PS as we'd call them for
short, I would get a new project and be like, Oh yeah, OK, so now
what do I do again? How do I start this floor plan?
OK, let's do the floor plan. Oh, I need to go measure first.
OK, let's measure. Oh, I need to make sure that the
window covering installer is there so he can measure the
windows. And these are just things I had
to remember every time I didn't have a list written down of the
standard things I need for every project and each step that we go
through. And once I did that piece of
cake every project, no problem. I just set up the task and
assign a date and then off we go getting that project done before
I had those, SO. PS I would inevitably forget a
step or forget a part of the process.
You don't want to be doing that. That creates chaos.
We don't like that. OK, so structure supports
creativity. And when you know your business
is steady, you show up with more confidence and less chaos.
And of course, being ACEO doesn't mean that you're doing
it all alone. So real leadership includes
delegating, finding someone else to do it, setting boundaries so,
you know, doing it within a nine to five so you're not going
crazy. So you actually have family time
and you enjoy your life and you've designed this life that
you love. Creating a culture, even if it's
just for you right now. Maybe you have a vision of
having a studio with five 720 employees working under you.
You need to think about that culture that you're going to
create now to make sure that it gets easily implemented as you
hire along the way and then let go of that martyr mindset.
Exhaustion is not proof of success.
And just because you would maybe do this for free because you
love it so much and you're so passionate about it, doesn't
mean that you should, right? And doesn't mean you should
sacrifice all of your own personal time and money to
please the client. So your clients will feel your
energy that you're bringing to the table.
A well resourced designer does better work.
So you want your clients to recognize that you are the boss,
that you're in control of a well run, well oiled machine of a
company. OK, So what should we do with
all this information? Block out one hour CEO date with
yourself this week. OK, so sit down and say what do
I need to do in my business to move the needle right now or how
can I make it better? At least one part of the
business this week and choose one of the following to either
maybe review your financials to audit your process or set a new
90 day goal. Start practicing vision planning
if you haven't done that before. All of this is going to take
practice and you're going to improve over time as you do it
more. OK, so those are all of the
things about being ACEO. Don't forget the different hats
that you have to wear. ACEO wears different hats right,
'cause we have different mindsets we need to keep in
mind. So that is visionary thinking,
decision making, confidence, leadership, and financial
ownership. So those are the key things for
shifting your mindset into being the CEO of your company.
And you're going to love it, I promise you.
So what do you think you're feeling like ACEO now?
Might take some time to work on it and really get to feeling
like that you are the owner and that you are here to make a
business run successfully, not just be an interior designer.
So which CEO hat are you putting on this week?
Are you a visionary, a leader, or ACFO?
Tag me or DM me on Instagram and let me know.
And be sure to tune in for our final episode in two weeks of
the series, How to Deal with Imposter Feelings.
And remind yourself that you're not alone in this.
OK? Next week we're gonna have
another great interview, and until then, stay creative.
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 ourawarddesign.com or e-mail me.
At podcast, at our award. Design.com.