Speaker 1 00:00:02 Hi, this is the interior collective a podcast for the business of beautiful living presented by IDCO studio. And I'm Anastasia Casey today's episode of the interior. Collective is all about managing your interior design studio from the softwares. We swear by to the intimate workings of hiring benefits, company policies and managing HR. We're covering a lot today in full transparency. I spent the majority of 2021 hashing out every detail of my business, defining our company culture, putting new policies in place and building up industry leading benefits from my team. We were lucky enough to bring in a corporate strategist to help us research, define and implement the most useful practices of large companies, but on a smaller scale this year, we've put it all to paper and created a plug and play template for you to adapt in your own design firm. A quality company, culture and smoothly operating business is key to profitability and longevity.
Speaker 1 00:00:59 Skip back to episode two is a breakdown, the perfect client experience for interior designers. But today we'll pick up where that leaves off with automations and key softwares. I wish I could tell you there was one software program that we suggest for everything, but it's just not the case. And honestly, I'm really okay with that. I would rather use a program that was really, really good at a couple of things than a program that tries to do so much. It doesn't do anything well before we dig in just a reminder that today's full transcript, show notes, links and products are all available on our
[email protected] code.studio/podcast. I encourage you to listen now and then go back later and read those transcripts to make your notes, but that's enough intro let's dig into our must have softwares starting with my personal favorite dub Sodo before using dubs Sodo.
Speaker 1 00:01:54 I'd used Asana Trello and base camp, and none of them offered the caliber of client experience. I was looking for when I had found dubs Sodo, I was one of their first users and have never, ever been more loyal to a brand. Their customer service is incredible. They're founded by a husband and wife team who were previously in the wedding photography business, and they were really just needing a better system. Jake and Becca are wonderful people and incredibly inspiring business leaders. They have a culturally diverse staff with kindness and equity at the heart of their brand. And I have just felt it so much every step of the way over the last six to seven years in my business, essentially dub Soto is the legal project manager for your interior design business from initial inquiry to final goodbye. Every piece along the way, dub Soto is really there to be the gatekeeper to make sure that things are legally bound to make sure that things are properly tracked.
Speaker 1 00:02:51 And to really just cover your butt as an interior designer, we use it for sending invoices for consultations and eSign services, sending design presentations, sending revisions, getting feedback forms, sending our contracts, sending proposals, scheduling meetings, onboarding, and off boarding clients and project management. This is more lightly not like construction management. It's more along the lines of like processes like phases of your design process. We love it for its canned email systems. And if you listened to episode two, you know that IDCO has already, prewritten 30 canned emails for you and dub Sodo is really where you would use those, although they would totally work great in your regular Google email or in your outlook. Dub Sodo is really like what sparked the journey to researching and developing out those perfect 30 client process emails. This is perfect for your form. So this is where you're gonna have your client homework for a project.
Speaker 1 00:03:56 They'll get to go through these questionnaires. They'll get to put in all of the details. You really need about a project right into your DSA form. Most importantly, this is your legally binding signatures place. It is imperative to have time stamp signatures on every proof, even when it's just a revision. And I think that this is one of the biggest mistakes that I see interior designers, graphic designers, web designers make is that they are sending off revisions and moving along and not getting a signature saying that I confirm this is what I wanna move forward with. Or I confirm I requested revisions because when that comes along later down the project and a problem arises, you have everything properly tracked, logged. You can see when they opened the email, you can see the last time they opened the email. And this is what I really loved about dubs Sodo.
Speaker 1 00:04:52 It's also amazing for automation. So dubs Sodo can automate sending your investment guides after someone inquires. It can automate sending contract thank yous. After something's been signed, it can automate receipts. It'll automate your welcome kids, your homework, your follow up emails and your general workflows. I loved dubs Sodo because it is branded and professional looking throughout. It truly is white glove. It is your URL. When someone is experiencing their client portal, it's an integrated client portal with your logo, not dubs Sodo. And so what I mean is that when someone is in their client portal, it doesn't look like they're in a Deb Sodo platform. It looks like they're on an extension of your own website. It also sends all emails from your actual email address when you are communicating with a client and it logs all of them in their client portal. So what I really love is that we send all client communications through dub Sodo so that every single email that has been transacted throughout a project can all live in this client portal so that they can easily see everything that has been sent.
Speaker 1 00:06:01 Those responses sent back to you are going to show up there as well. And so that's so amazing if you are diligent about sending your emails via Deb Sodo, when the client replies back to that email, that response is also logged. So it's sort of acting like your email server in itself, but it keeps all of your emails, very neat and tidy throughout the project. Now I know a lot of you are wondering, do I missing those emails in my inbox? If I'm sending everything from dub Soto and the answer is no, you will still be alerted in your inbox. You will still get those responses into your regular Gmail or outlook server, which is so helpful. So you don't always have to be checking dubs auto, but for the record, it keeps everything neat and tidy for you down the road. The key to ensuring a successful client experience is automation and templates.
Speaker 1 00:06:53 So make sure to go back to episode two for my entire breakdown of the client process and how to automate those. But in episode two, I promised you, I would explain Absa. So here we are. If you write an email more than once, it should be templated IDCO studio has worked with dozens of designers to create our 30 pre-written emails in our shop. Also linked in the show notes for you for easy access. Don't forget. I just want you to listen today. You can come back to the notes later, where you can really dive in deep use code podcast, 20 to save 20% off our client email bundle, exclusively offered to the interior collective listeners. These are done for you ready to copy and paste emails, which have proven to save our interior design clients. As many as 12 hours a week, they provide you polite, direct and educational responses to your clients throughout the entire interior design process.
Speaker 1 00:07:43 Your email server like Google has canned emails, but this is where dubs Sodo really shines. These canned emails can just live in your workflow with in dubs Sodo. So now that you have a basic understanding of dubs Sodo, we dig into this deep on the blog. So I'll make sure to link that as well. But I want to get into something that is slightly controversial. I am a big believer in Google drive, not Dropbox. I know that this is a hard one to swallow because so many people had started their business using Dropbox, but I'm gonna tell you why that's not where you should be anymore. And I can tell you from personal experience, I coached my friend, Lindsay Borchard from Lindsay Brook design through transitioning from Dropbox to Google drive. And she fought me on it for months and months and months. And when she finally did, she was so happy at IDCO studio.
Speaker 1 00:08:38 We moved everything over from Dropbox to Google drive because it uses a technology called drive stream. This feature keeps files accessible on your computer without taking up any storage space on your computer. Now, if you're a Dropbox user, you understand what I'm saying? When you have to manually save things to your desktop, to edit the file, and then re-upload it. Or you can select which files you want accessible on your computer at all times, if they're like the most current projects, the problem is is that those files are all taking up space on your hard drive. And when that happens, you are slowing down the productivity and the lifetime of your laptop or desktop computer using Google drive. The fundamental reason is that they have a technology that it pulls the file temporarily while you're using it and automatically puts it back into the cloud so that it never has to be saved on your computer.
Speaker 1 00:09:35 Since we were already using Google for our company email, this service was actually already being paid for. So it took some convincing, but we've converted the majority of our clients from Dropbox to Google drive because it's so much cheaper than Dropbox. On average, it's saving $165 a month. So there's this huge money cost savings. But also you're probably already using Google products for a lot of different things like Google drive or Google docs or Google sheets. And now you can just house it in the system that you're already paying for. If that's who you run your email through, it just makes sense. Here's a little bit more about Google drive stream. All files are accessible from your desktop or laptop as long as you're on wifi, but they actually aren't stored on your computer. It's saving tons of space, keeps your computer running more efficiently and smoothly, especially when you're in intense programs like CAD or InDesign or illustrator.
Speaker 1 00:10:31 If you're going to be offline, but want access to the files, you just have to right click select, make available offline. And that file will now be available on your computer until you're back onto wifi. So that's perfect. If you're taking a family trip and you're gonna be on the road for a while, you can still continue to work from these files. It is great for remote teams. Everyone has access to the most final version of the document. And unlike Dropbox, where you have to upload V one V two V3 V 5,500, this is automatically saving over those files. Although you can go ahead and rename the files and make a copy. If you do want every single version saved your Google docs and your Google sheets are also all being saved in drive. So you can put the folders, the spreadsheets, the documents, the meeting notes into the Google drive folder so that everything is in one place.
Speaker 1 00:11:23 And that's not how Dropbox is set up. Once you have believed me and converted to Google drive, I want you to make sure that everything is properly organized. So I'm gonna take you through how we structure our files here at IDCO and how they should be structured as an interior design studio. You should have a corporate file naming convention. So every file is easily searchable follows the same naming conventions and ensures that the entire team knows what the standard is. Here is my number one tip to keeping an organized file standard templated client folders. You're gonna create a templated folder to work off of for all future projects or anything else that you need to make more than once. You're gonna create a file in Google drive titled zero, zero underscore client template. So we like to do that because the zero zero puts that file to the very top of your folders automatically assuming that your folders are filtered alphabetically.
Speaker 1 00:12:24 So zero, zero will always go to the straight top. Within that folder. You're gonna have pre-created sub folders with the following titles, measurements and plans. You're gonna have project photos within that. There's gonna be a before photos by room progress, photos, and then accessories photos of the accessories you're gonna use. You'll have a folder for in progress, technical drawings and renderings, as well as CAD drawings inside of that folder, you'll have a folder within that technical drawings folder for Photoshop drawings, as well as 3d renderings. Again, this is all outlined in the show note. So you can just literally copy and paste this, but I wanted to talk through it. Additionally, in this client templated folder, you're gonna have final design plans, a folder for spec book and a folder for notes. And this is where any internal notes meeting notes organized by date are all going to live.
Speaker 1 00:13:14 So that is our version of a perfect interior design folder. However, you can go ahead and put that together any way you like, if you aren't doing CAD drawings, if you're not doing 3d renderings, obviously omit those. If you have any documentation that goes to a client every single time, you can also add this into this templated folder that you simply copy when you have a new project. So all of the documents that every client gets, every time are automatically duplicated and added to the new project folder. So when you have a new project, you're just gonna simply right click that templated folder, the zero zero underscore client template folder hit duplicate, and then rename it to however it is that you wanna name your projects, whether that's client last name or address, whatever organization structure you have for that, you should also be using Google drive for all internal documentation.
Speaker 1 00:14:07 So this is gonna be your training manual, such as how to use studio designer or light speed. This is going to be where you have your overall workflow chart. This is gonna be your list of vendor and trades. This is also going to be where you track your hour spreadsheets and Google sheets. Um, you'll have your custom furniture and pillow spec sheets in here. You'll have any admin stuff. You'll have your HR documentation, like your studio, handbooks, new hire checklists, et cetera. We'll talk about all of this later in this episode, as I walk you through the HR package, but you'll essentially have all internal documentation also on Gdrive. Um, by having two umbrella folders, internal and clients, everything in your business can be stored here neatly without having to search through thousands of folders. So I want you ha to have an internal and external folder under your parent business, Google drive folder that says internal and then that says clients.
Speaker 1 00:15:04 So all client work is in that one parent folder and all internal is in the internal folder here at IICA. We have seven years experience working directly alongside award-winning interior designers from around the world. Our mission to provide creative business solutions for interior designers in beautiful ways is what we absolutely obsess over from pre-written client email templates with dozens of five star reviews to fully copy written client process documents used by hundreds of designers worldwide. We have a track record for making things easy as a listener of the interior collective. We are proud to give you an exclusive discount code to our two best selling products, client, email templates, and client process bundles use code podcast 20 to save 20% off
[email protected]. I've linked it in today's show notes for easy reference. Again, that's podcast
[email protected].
Speaker 1 00:16:02 The next software I cannot get through this episode without talking about is slack. This is again going to be controversial, but we do not send internal emails. Our inbox is 100% reserved for client communication. Slack is dedicated to team communications. So our team exclusively chats on slack and we are not emailing each other. I, my inbox is sacred and I want it to be the only place that clients get a hold of me. And there's no other clutter taking up space. We have 22 team members across the United States, London, Paris, and Croatia. So keeping in close contact is super important as I've built the team. And as we have defined our corporate structure defined our company culture, slack has been the foundation for it. It keeps us so tight knit while also keeping us hyper productive. It has become really important to my productivity, actually in our Austin studio, as well as our team has grown.
Speaker 1 00:17:05 If you are the boss in your business, you understand what it's like when you are frequently interrupted by your beloved employees, asking questions and your actual to do list for the day isn't being addressed until 10 30 at night after their kids are in bed. Because all day you were just responding to people with questions. So we use slack where everyone in the office knows to send me any non-urgent questions via slack, and I can respond to them when I'm available, not interrupting key tasks. So this has been a big pivot for us because when I first opened the Austin studio and started hiring local people, I loved having the flexibility and collaboration of people just chatting throughout the day, asking questions, getting immediate answers. But I also quickly realized that that was drastically impairing my productivity. And I felt really overwhelmed that now that I have a studio, I work eight to 10 hours in the office, get home, spend three or four hours with my husband, and then essentially work an entire night shift of six to eight hours of doing the actual work I needed to do because all day I was just responding to people, reviewing things and getting them what they needed.
Speaker 1 00:18:25 So once we establish with the team that if it's non-urgent and you're just waiting for creative review, please send it to me on slack so I can get to it when I time block that. Usually first thing, when I get in at lunchtime and then usually about four 30 in the afternoon, so that people can get what they need from me, but it allows me to have dedicated focus time. I also think that slack keeps a really good company culture going. We are silly on slack. You can be less formal than you are in an email. It can be much more, um, fluid and funny and a little bit more relaxed than you would if you were just emailing back and forth. And I really, really, really like that about IDCO. It is great for project organization and brainstorming. So in addition to having our client folders on the Gdrive, we also have a channel within slack and slack is literally just an instant messaging platform that tracks everything basically like DMS, but in a much more organized way.
Speaker 1 00:19:26 So any creative conversation we have about a client, any project updates, anything, client feedback, it's all getting added to this slack channel so that you can search everything about this project in one place. And we can do all of our reviews internally in one place. And everybody who's involved in the project can be on that slack channel. I find slack really easily searchable every file that gets uploaded. Every picture that's uploaded, any link that's been added, it's all saved forever, and you can search it in a really easy way, both chronologically as well as by file type. And that I just feel is so much easier than searching. Email. Email is kind of a cluster in my brain. So I've really enjoyed that position as well. It has options for video calls or what they call a huddle instead of needing to use a zoom call.
Speaker 1 00:20:19 And so a video call is pretty self explanatory, but I also love the huddle feature, which you just click a little toggle and you're essentially calling them. And you can just have a quick phone call on that channel for whoever is involved. And we really use that quite often as well. Some of our team are contractors, and it's a great option. If you are outsourcing anything by adding your contractor to their specific project channel on slack at no additional cost, we can keep all our communication in there. So again, I'll repeat that. You're, you're, you're paying for slack by user, but you only have to pay for the user if users are using multiple channels. So if you have a contractor that's just working on one project, let's say you're outsourcing your CAD drawings, and they're only working on one project. You can have them on just that one channel, and it's not gonna cost you anything to keep them there.
Speaker 1 00:21:11 Most importantly, this is freeing up your email inbox for client and vendor communications only, which really allows you as a business owner, the ability to focus and single task, which I talk about a lot at design camp and on the blog next up, the other software that I just don't think you can live without. As an interior designer is Canva. Now it is an online graphic design software that is super user friendly and cost effective. As professional graphic designers. We of course use the Adobe creative suite for all of our client work. When we are designing logos, when we are building websites, we are not using Canva, but for the things that you need to do as an interior designer, we really believe in the productivity and abilities of Canva for an interior design studio. All of our IDCO studio, client process and marketing templates in the shop are designed in can.
Speaker 1 00:22:07 Some people say that can is like not as legit as in designer illustrator, which is true for professional graphic designers, but not in the ways that interior design studio would be using it are professionally designed. Templates are equally beautiful and easy to use. And as a business owner, I am all in for easy to use options. I want total control over my marketing assets, and I feel strongly that Canva allows you to do that. If I was handing over InDesign files to my clients and they're handing it off to their junior designers or to their marketing coordinator, unless that person has training in Adobe creative suite, they aren't able to use those files. So we built them in Canva because you can pick up Canva log into canva.com and start using it immediately without any sort of learning curve. I also will say that, although it's not as robust of a software, if you have a good quality design, it doesn't matter if that good quality design for that design presentation was laid out in indig or in Canva.
Speaker 1 00:23:14 And that's really why I built our product platform into Canva. We recently got Lindsay over at Lindsay Brook design to start creating her design presentations in Canva instead of keynote. And she says it has made a huge difference. Sometimes it just takes a little convincing for our clients to get on board, but I promise you, this is a change you want to make. If you are doing your design presentations in Photoshop or in keynote, you are missing out on an opportunity and you are making extra work for yourself. Having templated presentations save you so much time it's on brand, it's elevated and it really wows your clients. But what I love about it in the concept of growing your studio is having these templates in can means that you can task this project to anyone on your team and they are able to execute it.
Speaker 1 00:24:06 And I think that that is the most important thing you can do as a business owner is set your team up for success. Lindsay was actually able to make three additional types of design presentations from her IDCO interior design presentation template. She pulled out different pages and made, I guess, what you would call sub presentations. She was able to take the one interior design presentation template she got from ICO and make it into a concept, an inspiration presentation, an overall construction presentation, as well as an overall furnishings presentation. So because you have that groundwork done for you, you can now manipulate it the way you need to for the most effective process from a client facing perspective, but more importantly, from a smooth sailing business perspective in Canva, you can also create shared folders with your team and you can have one for each client similarly to how it works on Google stream, but it actually does it even better.
Speaker 1 00:25:06 If you're working remotely, you can go into the client folder and see your team's progress. In real time, you can literally watch them designing this design presentation in can without canvas, without interrupting what they're working on. You don't need to download it, upload it, work on it, send it back. It's literally having happening in real time and you don't have to have a billion different versions where you maybe missed where you made an edit, but your junior designer made an edit over it. Again, even as a professional design studio, our team has shifted many of our design projects over to Canva. There are certain things we will always use the creative suite for, but the ease and usability of Canva is all that you need as an interior designer. Anything that needs to be created by multiple people on staff could and should be made in canvas.
Speaker 1 00:25:59 So this is gonna include social graphics, proposals, welcome guides, design presentations, revisions presentations, goodbye packets, even stationary. It is easy to use and you can customize your branding and even upload your own fonts. It's eliminated the need for four Adobe creative suite licenses in our studio. And that alone saves us about $600 a month. So I am a big fan of it. And for someone who's not creating professional graphics for someone who's not designing logos, it really is going to be the best option for your entire team. As you're creating these client process documents and these social graphics. Now that you have the foundation in place, as we've worked through the softwares that are non-negotiables in running a successful interior design business, let's chat about growing your team and establishing a quality company culture. This week, we just released our human resources package at IDCO studio.
Speaker 1 00:27:00 It's something I've invested in over the last year and a half as our team grew, we brought in a corporate strategic consultant to help walk me through my options as a small business owner. When it comes to benefits, healthcare, maternity leave, flex schedules and company standards. We took everything we put into our company handbook and made it into a template. But before digging too deeply into what you should be including in your studio handbook, I want to say that this is a very important part of running your business. And sadly, it's often the part that gets looked over. I know that I personally felt like I could never afford full benefits or 401k plans for our employees, but after doing the legwork, I realized that in most cases matching a 401k plan at 3% for employees was usually an extra $200 a check. When I realized that I said, I can do an extra $200 a check.
Speaker 1 00:27:57 These people matter to me enough to spend an extra $200 a check. I also learned that we didn't have to provide our own healthcare plan until we had 50 employees. And we're not even halfway to that point. Instead, you can do a healthcare reimbursement program known as a Q S E H R a. It allows you to reimburse an employee for up to a certain amount as a single person and a higher amount as a family. This let my team use their own health insurance provider submit their insurance receipts and have it automatically paid via their paycheck. This past year has shown me that I have the ability to be the kind of business owner I believe business owners should be. It's shown me that I have the influence to create an industry standard that is not only equitable it uplifts women and provides them with the financial freedom and independence they'd deserve.
Speaker 1 00:28:52 They deserve. Now, before I start bursting into tears, let's go ahead and dive into what this HR package includes. So you can either purchase it on our website or recreate it to yourself at no cost. Now, before I start blubbering, let's go over what this HR package actually includes. So you can either go ahead and purchase it on our website or recreate it for yourself at no cost. So we have outlined job descriptions for what I feel are the key responsibilities and differences between your first initial hires at a design studio. So that's gonna include your senior interior designers, your junior interior designers, your procurement managers, purchasing assistance, and your marketing managers make sure to check out episode one of the interior collective, where Marie Flanigan us through her corporate structure in a super fantastic way. She builds career paths for her designers. That episode, I truly feel changed my life.
Speaker 1 00:29:51 The way she described creating career paths for her team was so moving and motivating to me. I got off that call with her and I instantly started working on something similar within our business. Um, and I hope that you felt as inspired by that as I did, in addition to the job descriptions, the key piece of the HR bundle is our studio handbook. I encourage you to look over this list in the show notes so that you can make sure that your studio handbook is covering the following an introduction to your admission statement in your company. The employment at well disclosure, employee classifications, equal employment opportunity and Americans with disabilities act, confidentiality agreements, personnel records, immigration law compliance, pay periods and pay days overtime breaks and meal periods, time tracking, hours of work, performance reviews, outside employment and freelancing, open door policies, anti harassment and discrimination, diversity and inclusion policies, names, and pronouns, prohibited, conduct, compliance, procedures, discipline, and standards of conduct, dress codes, safety use of business equipment, internet, email, slack, and computer use social media standards, travel general employee benefits and services, wagers workers, compensations, social security benefits, unemployment insurance bonuses, charitable donation, matching health, life and dental insurance, 401k and retirement planning, professional and trade associations credits general leaves of absence and time off flex time holidays here at IDCO.
Speaker 1 00:31:41 We have 15 paid holidays, summer Fridays. That's something we've implemented where every other Friday, during the summer we close the studio vacation IDCO has unlimited PTO and we love it. Jury duty, voting time. We close our office for half the day on election day to ensure that everybody has ample time to get childcare, to ensure that they can go and vote maternity and paternity leave, continuing education, unpaid personnel, leave contract workers, time management, contract workers, contract workers, taxes, personal accounting, acknowledgement of receipt of the handbook. I know that that is a lot. And we have pages and pages and pages written out with our exact policies in this template. But those are the things that at a big company you would be signing onto as you were hired. And even as a small company, you should have those. What makes this different is that we outlined it the way that we think our employees and the people who are investing their lives into our company should be treated.
Speaker 1 00:32:49 And that definitely is taking it steps further than a standard employee handbook. Next we've included a new hire checklist. This is a super handy way to make sure you're providing that new hire what they actually need to start the job off on a great note, what to expect on your first day, who you'll be reporting to what software apps to download before arrival, how we communicate, how we use different apps and softwares the wifi details, office details, login details, office, utility locations, office navigation, kitchen etiquette, and those file naming conventions. We talked about earlier in this episode, the IDCO human resources package also includes internal onboarding checklist, an onboarding guide to deliver directly to a new hire, a meet the team Canva template, where they can put names with faces and an employee review template. I have linked all of the additional information and breakdowns in the show notes, but I wanted to wrap up with these few final thoughts.
Speaker 1 00:33:54 Hiring is a revenue stream, not a business expense, hiring additional designers and support staff allows you to bill more hours. And those hours are marked up. You will make money as you hire people. The single most important asset you have in your business is the people who work there taking the time to create a safe, creative, flexible environment that allows people to thrive will pay for itself. Tenfold. It does not have to be scary. Building a team is the greatest blessing as a business owner, ultimately allowing you more freedom to be creative, be present with clients. And most importantly, having more time with your loved ones. If you enjoyed this episode of the interior collective, make sure to check out episode one with Marie Flanigan, episode two, where I walk you through the entire client process, episode four, with Claire J who teaches us how to maintain a great client process.
Speaker 1 00:34:52 As you hire and grow in episode 10 with Shay McGee, if you weren't able to write down everything you heard today, you can find all of the links, promo codes and examples. I referenced in other details from this episode of the interior collective on our website at ID code.studio/podcast as season one of the interior collective is wrapping up. I want to know what you wanna hear next. If you have questions or topics you'd like to hear next season, email me a
[email protected]. Again, that is podcast idco.studio. Your support means so much to me as I really didn't think I wanted to do a podcast. This season has proved me so wrong and have thoroughly enjoyed it. If you listen on apple podcasts, leave us review and share with your designer friends until next time take care. If you weren't able to write down everything you heard today, you can find all the links, projects, and images we referenced and other details from this episode of the interior collective on our
[email protected] forward slash podcast. Be sure to follow along on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletters. Stay up to date on what we're talking about next week. If you love our podcast, please leave us a review. If you have questions or topics you'd like to hear next, go ahead and email me at hi, the interior.co. Again, that is I, the interior dot.
