Red flag draw always thinks like, well, I could have done it
myself, but I didn't have time or I know that so and so could
do it for a cheaper rate, but I really just wanted to, I mean,
these are all, it's like out the gate, they're not valuing what
you're bringing to the table. You can still work with these
people, but we need to be mindful of this because these
are also going to be people that are likely going to need more
hand holding. They're going to ask more
questions. They're going to be harder on
you with boundaries and you're going to have to really set
those out gate. So the people that are going to
push back some deposits or they're going to say, no, I
don't think it's fair. They're going to want discounts.
They're going to want to finalize pricing at a later
date. They're going to ignore your
scope in general or timelines. And these are, I just think that
there's a good gut check on like sometimes how someone treats the
money at the beginning is how they're going to treat it the
whole way through. 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.
Hello, and welcome to episode 192 of Design Curious podcast.
Today on the podcast, we have Lauren NIST.
She is one of the founding partners of Magnolia and Maine,
which is a virtual bookkeeping and advisory firm that helps
small business owners understand their numbers with clarity and
confidence. She has spent years supporting
creative and service based businesses behind the scenes and
has watched companies grow from 900K to more than 3,000,000
simply by tightening their pricing, billing systems and job
costing. Lauren brings a warm, friendly,
judgement free approach to finances, making the money side
feel clear and doable, so owners can bill ahead, protect their
cash flow and make confident decisions that support the
business they want to build. I really enjoyed speaking with
Lauren. I love her approach to
accounting. It's really different.
So let's talk to with her and you can discover that too.
Hi, Lauren, welcome to Design Curious Podcast.
It's great to have you on today. Thank you so much for having me,
I'm so excited. Yeah, very important topic
talking about accounting for creatives, which is always a
challenge I think. But first.
Let's start with how you got into working with creatives and
doing accounting with them in the first place.
Yeah. So I actually, I was a psych
major, which is so random. And then I started working for
just a remodeling and design firm, just doing day-to-day
bookkeeping and that kind of grew.
And then when I left, I started doing some.
I was probably there, it was over a decade and yeah, yeah,
this is definitely this realm is my favorite.
But when I left, I wanted to kind of grow and work with a lot
more different types of small businesses.
And so I started working for a virtual firm, which put me
working with everything from jewelry designers to more
interior designers to concierge like physicians and stuff.
And so then that firm continued to grow and do great things.
And I think then I just kind of had the moment of like, I really
just want to get back to the small group again and just the
beginners and the just the small businesses.
And so my business partner and I broke out and we start going
through. Wow.
And how many years ago was that? So we just started our own firm
this last year, so 25, yeah. Nice, great, good.
And so your focus now is for the interior design industry?
So interior design definitely plays a hand in what we do.
Currently, I have over 30 clients on a virtual level and
that's split between me and my business partner.
And then we have like, you know, a couple of employees that work
with us too. But interior design, small
contractors, just the labor field in general to all trades
and stuff are my favorite because they fall into a weird
kind of place where they need that help, yet they're not
really ready to bring on anybody in house.
And so how we can help them get that kind of financial, like
just the financial foundation kind of established.
And so they have a process really.
That's great. Yeah.
Because a lot of people starting out don't know how to create a
process or what they need to do yet, right?
Yeah. I cannot tell you how often
people say, oh, I'm not good at numbers or, or this is not, you
know, I'm, I'm terrible at this. And it's like, that's it.
It's not your lane. You nobody expects you to be
good at this. This isn't what you started your
business for. It just happens to be a piece of
your business. And so, you know, you have kind
of have to get yourself in touch with the people that that is
their lane and then figure out how to make that part of your
business function for you and what works best for you in that
situation. A lot of that.
So you have a lot of experience working with creatives, and so
why don't we get into some of the more common money mistakes
that creatives can make that might hurt their cash flow and
just get them off on the wrong foot?
Yeah. So I think for me, one of the
things that I love working with creatives probably the most is
because they think in kind of the vision headspace.
So like they're constantly thinking in the place of like
finished spaces and the experience and how things are
going to feel when it's done. And but the challenge is that
they often treat money is it's a result of the work versus
something that needs structure along the way.
And so with that mindset, you're already setting yourself up to
complicate things and little things like money, having no
order in the way which you handle it, you just, they think
I'll get paid, we'll pay things as they go.
And we just kind of hope that there's money left at the end.
And so profit becomes more of a surprise versus a plan.
And then the assumption too that we're just floating the cost.
That's just part of the process. That's just how we're ordering,
sourcing, moving projects forward becomes what we think is
like the norm when in actuality you're functioning as a bank.
Another huge one for me would just be reactive discounting.
I think anytime to you when a client gets hesitant or you're
tight on cash, you feel that need to kind of drop things to
keep things moving and discount to keep things moving.
But you don't have any idea at that point what your margin even
is to know how much you can cut back.
And so all of these things play into keeping us up at night and
making it to where we don't know where we stand with our own
money. So we don't even know what we
could take at the end of the day, which is a scary feeling
within itself. And so we shifted to that
mindset of, well, we just more work means more profit.
And so we just have to work more and work more and work more.
And then now we're in a cycle. Yeah.
So what would you recommend then for someone to start to build
kind of a framework around their finances and how they're
estimating jobs and billing and all of those things?
Like without having any background, probably in
accounting months, we were like, I don't know where to start, you
know? So do you have some guidelines
that you could share? Around us, yeah.
So I think the biggest thing is first we start looking at money
as you would have or any other project.
So there's an order to it. So we have to first bill ahead
for what we're whatever we're going to buy, source things like
that. We need to get a deposit that's
fair. We're not the bank.
There's lenders in place for a reason and it's not you.
And then the next thing is we pay the business for what the
business spent. What did those materials cost
you? What did that labor to outsource
getting something upholstered cost you?
What did what does all that look like get that paid and then
whatever's left at the end of the month, we have to be
intentional and how we split it. We have to give that money a
job. So even if you just go there's
our simple rule of like 3010 sixty and this doesn't have to
be exact. It's not going to be perfect for
everybody, but it's just a thought.
So if you get paid ahead, you pay the business.
With the business spent right there, we should have money
leftover. If there's not, we didn't do our
job right to begin with. But then with what's left, you
put aside 30% of that for your taxes.
You put aside 10% of that for just a buffer for the business,
and you pay yourself the remaining 60.
If that feels shaky or scary, we shifted around.
We maybe buffer 20%, pay ourselves 40.
But at this point, we've created a system that makes things start
becoming more sustainable. And then we can go from there
and then tweak it to fit the needs best.
But at least we have a game plan for the money, and that gives
you a starting point. Yeah, I like that you can kind
of put some percentages on there and it helps someone see that
like, OK, if I am getting 60% of what's leftover, is that paying
me enough, you know? Right, right.
And, and, and I mean, let's be honest, everybody, their first
couple jobs, that's the real gut kick.
Like that's the thing that hurts your feelings because you're
like, whoa, I didn't make anything or, and there's going
to be months where there's going to be nothing left.
You have nothing to split lit up and you know, and so that's
where then you start having to say, OK, well then now we have
to start looking at my job pricing and what are these jobs
costing me and that becomes the next layer really.
Yeah. So you touched on earlier how a
lot of times we'll respond emotionally to maybe a client
and you know, discount our services or things like that.
Do you have advice that you generally give out for maybe
designer specifically on how they should cost their jobs and
plan on making a profit and things like that?
Yeah. So I think #1 is billing ahead,
OK. I mean, I'm going to say out the
gate, you're not the bank. We don't need to think we're the
bank. We don't need to act as the
bank. And if you're fronting money,
you're putting yourself at a financial risk because here's
things we see that happens is that somebody says, Oh yeah, I'm
going to start this kitchen remodel and it's October.
And so you order all this stuff and then they're like, well,
let's wait because Thanksgiving's coming up.
And so I wanted and you're stuck holding something.
So if that happened and you would have built in for all of
that, whichever you might, no problem.
Well, while all that stuff can be delivered and sit in your
garage, so you're ready to go work again.
And so then that protects your risk of your your money because
if not, we would have put ourselves out for that.
And then we're at risk of that client ghosting us and we're out
money on vendors, we're out money on sourcing things of that
nature. But then also by building ahead,
we keep the business, the project itself moving, but then
we start knowing is when we go back to earlier with like, OK,
well here's what we build and we're going to take away with
the business need to pay all that stuff.
If there's differences there, if you didn't bill enough, it
should be immediate pause for you to say, let me check because
we know clients add things. That's one of the best ways in
which you add more money or can catch money, but you have to
make it to where it's part of your system to catch that.
So that becomes a red flag that you can catch, so we can start
spotting scope creep and stuff at that time.
And so for me, yeah, billing ahead, always a huge thing.
Creating a clear scope and giving that to your client.
It doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to have this
pretty stuff. I know as creatives and as
designers, you're so caught up in that part, but at the end of
the day, it just needs to be clear so that when they do go
outside of that, you've left yourself a room to add in
something extra. And normally they're all for it
because by this point in the game, they're seeing your vision
come to life and they want to expand on it.
And what is another 5 or 10 grand more when they're already
out 5060, even 10 or 15, another two or three grand, you know, is
not that big of a deal to help as they're seeing this vision
come to life and upgrade this or whatever.
So we've set our, you know, belly head gives us the path to
be able to reduce that financial stress, but also it can create a
calm for us because we know where that job is at any given
time. It just and we can jump in and
stay on top of it a little bit better.
So yeah #1 for me is always going ahead.
And then two, it's staying on top of knowing where that
project is and when the job is done, reviewing it where you had
your wins and where you had your failures.
And we're all going to have those that happens in every
industry. And so giving yourself these
tools, then we've created it to where we can, we can educate our
client to come the next time if they're hesitant on your
costing, we now instead of knocking ourselves on what we're
worth, we can defend it. Well, it's in my experience,
I've seen that this and this and this drawn about this and they
take longer to come in or they have or higher quality shelf
life or they, you know, whatever it might be.
So we've created a way to circumvent that situation with
the client. We're going to educate the
client versus emotionally respond in those moments.
Yeah. And I love that you talked about
reviewing the job at the end and, you know, making sure that
this was a job that you want to do again, like you want to ask
for a referral or, but maybe it's not like there probably are
some red flags that you would immediately say like, we don't
want this kind of job again. What would you identify as?
Maybe some of those red flags? Yeah.
So I think that there's red flags within your clients and
then there's red flags within your job types.
The biggest thing I tell people all the time in any of my
advisory sessions when it comes to clients is you have an ideal
client. The first thing you should do is
be OK with that idea and know that I think he's small business
owners and I deal with this exact same thing and I have not
even in the same industry. But you especially early on feel
this until like, who am I to decline a job like as if the job
gods are going to come down to be like you said, no, you are
too good for this. You shall not get any more.
And so we feel this need to like constantly be like, yes, I'll
take this, yes, I'll take this when they out the gate are doing
things that is setting the tone in a wrong way for you.
And so I think one knowing that it's OK to not take it is no,
it's a complete sentence. And I think that that is in
every aspect of your life, but especially in business, it's OK
not to take a job. And when your idol kind is going
to be somebody that's going to respect that you need to
deposit, they're going to be thoughtful about their
questions, but they're going to trust that you have an expertise
that you bring to the table here and not undermine that.
For me personally, red flags are always things like, well, I
could have done it myself, but I didn't have time, or I know that
so and so could do it for a cheaper rate, but I really just
wanted to, I mean, these are all, it's like out the gate,
they're not valuing what you're bringing to the table.
You can still work with these people, but we need to be
mindful of this because these are also going to be people that
are likely going to need more hand holding.
They're going to ask more questions.
They're going to be harder on you with boundaries and you're
going to have to really set those out the gate.
So the people that are going to push back some deposits, they're
they're going to say, no, I don't think it's fair.
They're going to want discounts. They're going to want to
finalize pricing at a later date.
They're going to ignore your scope in general or your
timelines. And these are, I just think that
there's a good gut check on like sometimes how someone treats the
money at the beginning is how they're going to treat it the
whole way through. That's a good point.
And at the end of the day, you love what you do.
That's the perk to doing what you love.
But you're here to make money. You're, you're also here to have
a life outside of your business. And so these boundaries, texting
you at random times to ask you stuff or wanting to nickel and
dime you over the simplest things or not pay for extra
things that you know is going to give you the longevity of the
product or, or things like that. These are just, it's not worth.
These are also the people that are not going to be happy in the
end and are going to leave you the bad review.
So they're going to have sucked up your time, your resources,
your energy, and quite possibly damaged your brand.
And so I think there's so much power in knowing your ideal
client, but more specifically knowing who isn't your ideal
client and taking that as a red flag and being OK with walking
away. I'm guilty of this next thing
too. But sometimes too, we want to
just throw a really high number at it and hope that it goes
away. And the worst thing is when
they're like, cool, see ya Wednesday.
And you're like, no, we work together.
Like it's still not worth it, Yeah.
So I think too, there's that.
Like just be careful because you may still throw a number at it
and it's still not worth what it's taking from you energy
mentally and resource wise. So yeah, ideal clients, red
flags there. But then jobs.
So I think that with jobs, we fall into the realm of, and this
to me happens in every single business, but you have different
sweet spots amongst your jobs, right?
It's not about charging more makes more money.
And I think that's a huge misconception coming in.
There's so many layers to this, but there's this place where
like efficiency and complexity kind of live in a harmony.
So often times you have your projects that are like, I'm just
going to throw random numbers out there, like 15 to $25,000
and they've got a clear stove. They've got faster decisions.
You're in and you're out faster. And maybe these are like a Jack
and Jill bathroom or something like that, or just just things
that are faster turnarounds, right?
So they're often very profitable, but then you may
jump to like a 26 to $50,000 project.
And they come with more complexity.
This is for your average client either this is the top of their
scale. So this money is huge than as it
should be. I mean, it is all of this is a
lot of money. But their expectations are
higher and so your margins are often tighter and these are the
people watching you the most closely.
So these take more hand holding and things like that.
So your, your sweet spot here, your profitability is going to
drop down. But then you may move up and it
may be that for you. Then you go to 51 to 100K plus
projects. And now we're back being
profitable because we're priced 1 intentionally.
There's room for management costs, there's room for
coordination costs, there's room for systems.
So our profitability peaks back up again.
So and then you add into here to like the resources that are
constantly moving in and out and your resources and the hand
holding. And so the goal for those to me
are knowing where your sweet spots are and where your
creativity and your capacity and your profit kind of all aligned.
And odds are you're going to be doing a little bit of all this.
And like, listen, odds are you just need it for your portfolio
too, right? So nobody, nobody's going to pay
a whole lot of attention to your Instagram if it's constantly 1/2
bath or a Jack and Jill bathroom or a kids bathroom.
You know what I said? They're going to want to see
huge kitchens and pretty kitchens.
They're going to want to see really Moody, beautiful studies.
They're going to want to see all of these huge transformations.
You're going to need that. But too, I think from a creative
level, those are your favorites anyway.
Like you, you want to do those and you should do those.
It's just about knowing that balance in there.
And that's to me where it all comes back to looking at that
cost of these jobs and how these jobs fared after the fact.
So it may be too that you can still take on that type of job
again, that maybe we can't do two of them at the same time.
Maybe we need to mix it with one-on-one level and 1:00 on the
other level so that the efficiency can still exist
together, but our profitability. So you're still feeding that
artist brain and doing the things you love while still
making the money you need and keeping the clients happy all at
the same time. So it's so many layers to that.
But then again, it's not that hard to do.
People think job costing has to really be these fancy like
spreadsheets and it really doesn't.
It's just what you spent, what you build, what's left, you
know, And then if it's not, we know you can Google.
I mean, industry standards should be, they say gross
profit, like 35 to 55. I'd love to meet the people
making 55%, but I know none. So, yeah, and I think that 35 is
totally a healthy goal to achieve that is remarkable fee
within itself. But like knowing too, not only
that, but like what do you need to make?
So making what you're wanting to make as part of a, which again
it goes back to when I'm wanting to, OK, if we're not taking out
of that 60% what we want to take home, then what do we need to
take home? Well, let's add that into the
cost of these jobs and then is that possible?
You know, are we making that? And if not, what needs to
change? So it's not, these are really
simple framework. It's just a matter of the
mindset of looking at this part and you're creating this data
anyway. It's just reviewing it.
I mean, the job's going to cost you what it's going to cost you,
regardless if you look at it or you don't.
You know. So.
Yeah. OK.
Well, that's a really good point because I like thinking about
how, you know, analyzing that maybe those ones that cost you
more in your focus and attention in the middle, like spacing
those out. It would be really smart and you
know, maybe for those types of jobs recognizing that and then
having a wait list for like. Yeah.
Those ones like it doesn't mean you have to say no if you still
enjoy doing them but not like having 5 going at the same time.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
And two, building and like management fees and stuff, I
mean, if you know, they're going to take more hand holding, then
build that into your costing when you're pricing it, you
know, add in more of that stuff so you have more wiggle room
there that you know that this is somebody that's going to you're
going to have to show them. They're not going to take just
one sample of her, you know, and you just like this is my
favorite and then be like, cool, they're going to want to see
three to five, you know, and So what is that going to look like
for you as far as sourcing products and and things like
that and be. Yeah, I think just being mindful
of the time it's going to take you to do it and realistic of
what you have as far as your capacity, because it's not work
more, make more. It's it really is.
There's AI, wouldn't call it a science behind it, but there's
data behind it that it, things fall the way they fall for a
reason. And all you have to do is just
look at your own numbers. They're not scary, they're just
numbers. And it's not, it's not a
complicated science. It's just knowing what to look
at and then just seeing the trends because they're the
trends are going to fall into place anyway.
Yeah. That's true.
Yeah. So what are some habits that
maybe these small business owners can do to help stay
profitable so that they're not like constantly stressing and
looking at numbers and just like, like, make sure I'm
meeting all my costs here? Like what are?
What are some good things for them to do?
Yeah, Yeah. So I think that one is reviewing
your numbers monthly. I think that people tend to shy
away from doing that because that feels when like it might
hurt their feelings or too daunting.
And so I think that we need to like think of it like, no, no,
no. Is it is.
I like to think of it is it's like Fisher Price easy in the
sense that you can make it as simple as it needs to be.
It doesn't have to be even as much as I love like QuickBooks
and stuff like that, you don't have to have all that.
You don't have to have huge Excel spreadsheets.
You can just have a simple, I build them this, I spent this,
this is what overhead cost me. This is what's left.
OK. And then, you know, kind of go
from there. But just looking at it is the
first step to like checking to make sure that we're checking in
on where we are with money and how that's aligning to where
what we've got coming up. Maybe not even in a 60 day
window, but maybe just a 30 day window.
Like what, what are we needing for this?
What are big costs that we have on a personal level that's
coming up that we can't skip paying ourselves?
So what, what does it need to look like?
And then just making sure we're billing ahead and making sure
that we're, we're billing for things that fell out of scope.
And here's the thing, if you're going to give it away, my gosh,
acknowledge that you gave it away.
Send them some type of invoice that says we did this for free.
You know what I'm saying? That he was, this was worth
$400.00 less courtesy discount of $400.00 because they're going
to remember that. And that might be the piece that
sells you the next job with them or that gets them to talk to
their neighbor, whether have a glass of wine on their porch,
you know, wondering the weekend about it.
And so just knowing, I mean, because there's nothing wrong
with that if you're going to, if you're like, well, I just went
ahead and did something because I was here already or whatever.
But they're not mind readers. They don't know that.
So let you know putting all that out there.
But then if we're just giving our profit a plan, if we're just
letting things up intentionally with what's left, we've kind of
got a game plan in mind. So we've got these safety Nets
that are kind of guard railing a little bit for us.
And so we stopped being as reactive.
And I think with that comes the calm.
So then we're not stressing as much.
We know where we stand. And sometimes knowing where you
stand, even if it's not as pretty as you'd like it to be,
is still a calming feeling versus the unknown.
But then you know, really I think that if you can come up
with simple ways to create some type of pricing and expectations
and fees out the gate, that clarity's going to create that
com free later on too. Yeah.
So you definitely have, you know, honed in like billing
ahead. So that would be not not just
for product, but as well As for fees.
How do creatives make sure that they're charging enough, first
of all, ahead of time, like they're doing a flat fee, and
then how do they make sure that their cash flow is working?
Or what if they like this job is taking longer than they
expected, you know? Yeah, yeah.
So I think that one of the things that I see creatives
giveaway out probably more than anything is their drawings and
stuff out the gate. So you spend so much time, you
go out, we look at these jobs, you draw up something, you give
them really pretty things, and then often times they'll sit on
that for a long period of time. So to me, a designed fee itself
is worth it. It pays for your time to do
that. You can always, if you want to
offer you credit it back if you convert it into a job.
But bottom line is the cost for you doesn't start once you start
purchasing materials. It starts once you pick up the
phone or respond to an e-mail. So we have to shift the mindset
there of how do we start making money at that point?
But when we start doing these drawings and when we give that
pretty package to them, that package should make it pretty,
make the whole mood for it, everything beautiful.
But let that come at a price point itself, whether that be
two grand, $700.00, whatever you think.
And then if you think that you're going to get because I
mean, the bottom line is sometimes they do take a while.
Sometimes this pretty picture has to sit here and it takes
somebody a while to either come up with the funds to make it
happen or to talk their spouse into it or to, you know, like
whatever it might be. So making sure you're getting
paid out the gate where these we're billing for what we've
done and then our payments and all need to be tied to the scope
and we need to know that we're time yet to progress.
So as it's moving, we're on to the next thing as we get close
to this, this bill will go out if we get close to this,
whatever that might look like, even if that's 50% upfront and
then 25 and 25. And I never really like to see
anybody hold any. A lot of people like, well, I'll
save the last 25% till we're done. 25% is a lot of money like
and then you're talking, they're going to walk around with blue
tape and inspect paint or they're going to, you know, look
an entire piece of furniture up and down for anything.
We're holding up a huge, I mean, most of the time that's more
than what you're going to make, especially in the early years in
profit. And so I say we try to get that
number down to like 5% at the end and let's bill all the way
up to that because that's more realistic of like if that's your
profit, then that will hold off on that part.
But the rest of this is just fees and pricing of doing the
job and that's different. So when we set up those
schedules, let's be realistic on what we can actually afford to
hold on. Because when you give them that
option to hold off until final sign off or whatever
walkthrough, whatever you do, they're going to do it and
you're on their schedule at that point, not yours any longer.
So you're out of control your own money at that time?
Yeah, yeah, all of these conversation that we've been
having today, it like makes me think back to my first few years
in business and all the things I did wrong.
I was out money for a long time until they said like, OK, it's
finally done. And then like here's.
But I think that, yeah, that's everybody though, because you
just don't, you don't think in that moment that you're like,
well, that seems fair, but it's like 50 and then 25 and 25.
You're like, all right, things getting up to me and then you're
like, wait a minute, 20. Like I'm held up for one tile
that may have cracked or something.
And now I'm I'm out, you know, a good chunk.
That's a lot. That's impactful.
So yeah. Yeah, very good advice.
So let's talk a little bit about Magnolia and Maine and what kind
of services that you provide if someone's interested in working
with you. Yeah, we actually do bookkeeping
and advisory for small businesses and we take it all
the way down to just super small where you might be just needing
somebody just to even at the end of the year come in and clean up
your books to get it tax ready for you.
Or we on a monthly level where we're just going in and
reconciling everything and categorizing things for you.
And the one thing that was really big on for me when we
started this was that I had this idea in my head that it would be
like this, like porch talk. So I would, we would do our
books every month and we would send it to the person.
But then that's just these fancy forms, right?
And so for most business owners, it doesn't mean anything.
And it's intimidating to get this packet full of financials.
So this was something that I pushed very hard for us to be
able to do. We offer advisory calls after
you get your financials every month so that we can sit down
and we can just talk through what does this mean?
What am I saying when I look at this?
What do you see when you look at this?
What are things in which maybe reflected on here may not but
feel big like debt payment or paying ourselves or saving for
something that we're trying to get or at a client one time that
her biggest thing was just that she wanted to just get a car
through her business herself and it not have to be anything to do
with her husband. And that's so we just started
chipping away at getting her to that place.
And I mean, so I think that just having that kind of what on what
space of reflecting for us is really important.
So it's the bookkeeping side, but then it's also the just like
feeling like you have a partner, like you can have this just like
sitting on the porch having a conversation with a friend that
just happens to know a lot about the finance side of things.
And you can just kind of just talk through where you're just
given not only grace, because I think that's when the business
centers lack in giving themselves 24/7 is, is the grace
of they feel like they should be perfect at every aspect of a
business. And that's just not the case
because that's not, you know, every, every aspect is a
different type of business. And so getting somebody to give
you that support that grace, but also just the honesty.
And sometimes the honesty is not the fun part.
And so we want you to feel confident but not judged.
And I think that for me, I wanted to set up a place where
we could work with people, whether it be $400.00 a month or
$2000 a month. But at the end of the day, you
would have numbers that would feel supportive and not scary.
Because I think that for every business owner, that is the key.
Walk away is that you've got a great set of tools in your
numbers if you just use them and so helping people see that you
can use them that they're not scary foreign scientific things
and think of it more of like Fisher Price easy like this is
just you know, it's just basic math.
We just need to learn how to use it as a.
Tool I love that that's a great gentle approach for a lot of
people who might even have, you know, money baggage and coming
into it too, just like I can't talk about numbers and but that
you have it framed as like a, you know, sitting on the porch
type of a conversation. It's really approachable and I
think that might be, you know, something that is desirable,
especially for a lot of women owned businesses.
Yeah, intimidated by numbers, so.
Yeah, yeah. And I think two people just
forget that debt is a tool that's you use money as a tool
to get you from point A to point B.
And there's no shame of that. It's just kind of giving it.
So once again, it's another set of number which we just got to
give it a game plan and that and we can get ourselves right back
out of it. It may be a longer plan than
other things, but that's OK too, because it's a tool to get you
where you are. No shame in that.
So yeah, yeah, that that for us is the biggest thing.
It's just we just want you to feel like you've got a sounding
board and a safe place to land. Love that.
Well, thank you for doing that, Lauren.
And we're going to put your contact information in the show
notes so people can reach out to you and they want to work with
you or just have a conversation. Thank you for coming on today
and sharing your insights with keeping and making the numbers
less scary. Yes, yes, thank you so much for
having me and for putting this out there to help others find it
so. Yeah, my pleasure.
So go ahead and reach out to Lauren if you'd love to work
with them. I've already recommended them to
some boot campers from last winter's boot camp because they
have an offering that is perfect for if you're just setting up
your business, which is to like set up your QuickBooks and then
kind of let you take over the day-to-day stuff, right?
But you need to make sure your accounts are all set up
properly. So then you can export reports
and all the things that you need to do.
Because if you just get QuickBooks online, like it's not
set up for a design business. It's just like standard stuff
and you have no idea what accounts to put in there and
what to categories things as. And so that's where you need the
professional to come in. And they just have that one time
setup and maybe you want to work with them more afterwards.
But the one time setup is perfect for setting up your
business at the very beginning. So check that offering out and
then also boot camp is almost here and the doors are opening
soon. If you're thinking about
starting your own interior design business, I would love to
have you join us. It's such a great way to start
your business. You get to go through all the
things that you need to do. You're not forgetting anything.
It's all set up within 8 weeks so that you can start taking on
your own clients this fall. I'd love to have you in there.
And we also have a webinar that's going to be happening in
June. We have June 10th, June 24th.
So there's going to be a link for you to sign up for those
webinars. And the webinar is going to help
you decide if you want to sign up for Boot Camp because it's
called. Are you ready to start your
interior design business? And how much does it cost to
start a business? Right.
It's that everyone wants to needs to know that if you're
thinking about it. So come attend this free webinar
June 10th. I'd love to have you there.
But if you already know you're ready to start your business,
then sign up for boot camp and links are in the show notes.
I'd love to have you. All right, that's all for this
week. Next week we'll have another
great episode. 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
arworddesign.com or e-mail me at podcast@arworddesign.com.