[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Today on the Interior Collective, I'm sitting down with Reed Humphrey, co founder of Alder and Tweed, one of the largest residential interior design firms in the country, and the founder of Design Assist, the platform helping interior designers grow their team at a fraction of the cost. Reed built Alder and Tweed alongside his sister Heather. They carved out a niche in the luxury second home and vacation destination design and scaled the firm to a team that now relies on more than 20 remote junior designers to help support projects across the country. That staffing model didn't come from a business book. It came from hitting a very real wall inside his own firm. Recognizing that the way most design studios hire was making growth unnecessarily expensive and unnecessarily painful, and decided to solve it differently.
What he built became Design Assist, and today we're going to get into all of it. The problem it was designed to solve, who these designers actually are and how to integrate remote service in a studio without losing your standards or your client experience. And what it really means to build a team that lets you get back to the work only you can do. If you've ever talked yourself out of hiring because you couldn't justify the cost, this episode is going to reframe that conversation entirely. Hey, Reid, welcome to the show. I'm so excited and honored to have you on today's episode of the Interior Collective.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. Such a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: I am ready to jump right in because as I was chatting with you before we hit record, like, I just think this is such a timely conversation. And as someone who has scaled her team from, you know, there was two of us at the beginning. We were as many as 25 and then back down.
I just think that what you're offering is such an incredible resource. So I want all the nitty gritty details. Let's start at the beginning.
Your bio tells us that your career in interior design was once, like, completely unfathomable to you. Before we get into Design Assist, I'd love to start at the beginning. What were you doing before Alder and Tweed? And how did you end up co founding one of the largest design firms in the country?
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah, Alder and Tweed has always been kind of my core business.
Alder and Tweed started out. We actually have. I come from a family of importers, so we have an importing background. I was raised, you know, my parents, they had a lighting business, decorative lighting, table lamps, chandeliers, et cetera.
And so when they sold that, we as a family said, hey, let's, you know, let's start our own thing. And we actually started and Alder and Tree kind of evolved from this, but we started in retail furniture and we had like locations in Salt Lake, locations in different parts of California.
And so we were importing based off our importing background and we were trying to sell that kind of at the retail level. And honestly, we timed it poorly. We did that during 08, kind of when the housing crisis and all that happened.
And the one thing like, the one like positive thing we gleaned from that, just because it wasn't working that well, was in our Utah store, our Salt Lake store. We had these people coming down from Park City who, who bought these vacation homes and needed to furnish the entire thing.
And so we're like, hey, like that's an opportunity. So we're like, let's forget about this retail and let's go up to Park City and see if we can basically service vacation home type communities or vacation home type, you know, type product.
And so we are kind of on a whim, you know, we took a chance and we did that.
And we basically from there evolved into a full service design firm where we focus on vacation home type product.
We have an office in Park City, Utah, office in Big Sky, Montana and then in the Hudson Valley, New York.
But we just try to help people who are remotely located because all our clients, when it's a vacation home that's, you know, their primary residence is somewhere else, we try to just make it really easy on them. And so that's kind of been our shtick as a design firm. And that's where Alder and Tweet came from.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: I love that you picked a very specific target niche and filled, filled that void with your services.
What made you decide?
Besides that's where your clients were coming into the retail store. What made you decide, okay, we are going to continue to focus on this and not like, oh, we're getting enough clients, let's take on, you know, anybody who's coming through the door.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I think honestly, I think in our retail store our backs were kind of up against the wall and we didn't, I mean, we were young and stupid and today I would never take that chance because I have a family and I have people to support. But it's just, it was, it's kind of what we had to do. So we honestly cold turkey stopped retail and rented a place in Park City and just started doing it and we just didn't have an option. So we had to make it work. And it's, it's funny when we're younger, like, we, you know, know, we're willing to take risks and. And just make things work.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Okay, so you have three offices by coast, by mountain. Le Bicoastally is so Alder and Tweed now is project spanning the country and a very, very large team. At what point did the operational demands really outgrow the pacing and the way that you were staffing? And how did that actually. What did that actually feel like in the business? How did you identify that the workload and the staffing was not lining up?
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Right. So we had a very similar experience that most people have, or most people had, I should say, is the whole, like, design assist or the concept behind it originated during COVID and our design firm.
There was like this mass migration to, you know, to kind of mountain areas is what we found. People were like, hey, I don't have to be in the city. I can do my job remotely. And so, like, why not move to Park City? Why not move to Big Sky, Montana?
Why not, you know, do my work during the day and ski in the late afternoon type thing? And so we had this mass migration, and we just saw, you know, as a result, there was this mass influx of business and demand of people saying, hey, can you. Can you design my home? Can you spec the finishes? Can you spec the furniture? Can you get it, like, full turnkey for me?
And the demand just got so great. And it was from clients who were return clients, it was from clients who were referred. And so we didn't want to turn them away, per se, but at the same time, we didn't have the staff to facilitate it.
And everyone can relate with this as well in the design world is you couldn't hire during that time, it was virtually impossible. Everyone was hiring.
It was just a tough time. And so I got the thought, well, what if I could just find people remotely who can kind of help us out? And my thought was this. It was like, I've got this great team. I've got already. I've got great seniors who've been with me for a while. I've got great designers under them. What if I could add a third person to that team that could support that team and increase that team's bandwidth, essentially.
What if that person could be remotely and they could take on a lot of the backend work that really kind of bogs us down.
And I'm talking about CAD work, putting presentations together, filling out schedules, following up with vendors, 3D rendering, stuff like that.
Important work, don't get me wrong. But it bogs your seniors down. And really you want your seniors in the creative more, if possible.
And so as I started thinking about that, I thought, well, my initial thought was just remotely within the country, but then I was like, well, if they're remote, they can theoretically be anywhere in the world. And so I did some research and I found that the Philippines has a population that speaks excellent English.
They actually have to master the English language to graduate grade school.
And they really put this emphasis on education, but also on like, you know, on design.
And so on a whim, I went over there and I actually hired an HR person. I said, I want you to find me the two best designers that you can find. And I just want to try this out.
And so I hired these people on, I put them under, you know, to my teams. And I just kind of let it sit for a couple months and just kind of waited to see what happened. And it was a total game changer.
It was really amazing to see how these teams just embraced it and how the teams were, their bandwidth increased, like I thought. But also the other thing that happened is the teams were happier because my senior was more in the creative, she was doing more of what she wanted.
And I found that, you know, I no longer had my high value people doing kind of low value work.
I was allowing them to kind of push our business forward, to make our business more profitable, to make us more creative and all that. So that's kind of how it originated, you know, fast forward. In my design firm, I have 25 on staff that are remotely located and just support my local teams.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: So when you first went to the Philippines, you were you investigating that with like a business model in mind or were you just looking to solve your, your own firm's problem with staffing issues?
[00:09:52] Speaker B: I, I was solely looking at solving my own firm's problems and trying to kind of work that out. It wasn't like we started Design Assist probably. I think it's been about a year, maybe a little bit over a year now.
But I've been doing it since COVID hit. I don't know if that's been four or five years. I don't know. Time goes by fast. But. But yeah, so, so like we've, we've been doing it, we've kind of like learned from it, learned, you know, worked out the kinks, understood how it works best in a firm.
But yeah, we, so we, we've been doing it a while.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Okay, let's talk about the actual design team that is based in the Philippines who's working with Design Assist. I think one of the most important things for our listeners to understand is who these designers actually are. Can you paint a clear of the background, education and experience level of a Design Assist candidate?
I know that you said, you know, they're super versed in the English language, but from like a design and technical perspective, what skill set are they coming in with?
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, so, you know, it's funny you ask that because I was actually over there in May and I go pretty frequently, but in May I made it a point to visit like the design schools, just to kind of see what kind of education they're getting. And I was absolutely floored of the quality of schools.
You know, I would say some of the schools I visited were on par with some of the schools here in the States.
Really impressed with just the different departments they have and kind of the things they give them and the labs they have for creativity, from 3D printing labs to seamstress labs, everything you can think of. But it was really cool.
But one thing that we found is that, you know, and again, we've worked out these kinks in our own firm, but we require them to have at least a four year design degree. That's really important to us and to have at least four years of industry experience.
And so those are the credentials they have to meet. Now it's interesting, in the Philippines, they actually have to, they have a test every single year to keep their accreditations.
So, you know, their bar is slightly higher in terms of keeping those accreditations that than it is here in the US Especially.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah, especially because some states aren't requiring accreditation at all. So definitely.
Okay, so your designers are based in the Philippines and they're. But they're working during US hours.
For studio owner who's never managed a remote team member, particularly like an overseas remote team member, what does day to day communication, task load and collaboration like really look like?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. And so, and just to clarify, when, you know, when I originally started this in my design firm, we had them working exactly our US hours.
The exact hours we were working. We had them. We had them, you know, basically mirroring that on their end.
And what we found over time is that they would burn out. Like, it just wasn't doable. And so now we've, we've adjusted it so essentially there's like four hours of crossover time during the workday and that changes slightly depending on the time zone you're in.
But we found that works really well in terms of preventing burnout. But also we found that Our design teams have really loved that because they can essentially, they have four hours where they can communicate, collaborate, do whatever they need real time.
And then my design teams here have several hours where they can just kind of plan for their team members, kind of give them a to do list to get done. The next day that person starts working on it, and then my senior comes in the next day and they have a bunch of deliverables that are ready to review. So that's worked extremely well.
But in terms of communication, I think obviously the one thing that Covid showed us is we can work remotely, but we work in the Google ecosystem and Microsoft has the same tools and there's a number of other softwares that offer it. But, you know, we essentially use like Google Chat on a normal basis. We're constantly chatting back and forth. They're dropping in floor plans, they're putting together into the chat. We're reviewing them, saying, hey, you know, that rug, you know, maybe let's go with the 12 by 15, it looks a little small type thing.
So we're doing that, we're emailing, obviously back and forth. We have Google Voice. So like, you know, there's a number of times where I'll just, you know, call that remote junior and just kind of work through things.
And then obviously Google Meet, which is just like a video call. We'll hop on a video call, hey, let's review that presentation. Let's hop on the video call, let's go through it page by page and do a page turn. So all those tools have made it really helpful and really successful for us.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Can we talk a little bit about onboarding?
Obviously you have these requirements that they're expected to meet.
Also, though, for the onboarding portion of once, you know, they're a good candidate, what happens on your end before designer ever meets their first, like, client firm?
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Sure.
So the process for us, when someone's interested, they essentially call in, they'll talk to kind of one of our salespeople.
And the goal for that salesperson is just to really understand their needs, like the gaps they need to fill.
And based on that, you know, they'll go back and essentially go to our staffing pool. And we have a staffing pool of, you know, we have a team on the side that's constantly vetting and looking for qualified people that ultimately end up in our staffing pool. But they'll go to our staffing pool based on the sales call and just find someone who they feel like meets those needs.
And then from there they'll Say, hey, let's set up an interview. I'd love you to meet this person.
All parties, including our team, the candidate and the design firm will hop on a video call and they'll just have an interview and a discussion and they can kind of make sure that they jive and it works for them.
And there's zero commitment up until they're like, hey, that person makes sense. We love that. Let's move forward.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Something I hear often on this show when I'm interviewing designers is that, you know, there's the pushback of some people are definitely in the field of I have to have someone right next to me. I am not one of those people. My whole team's remote. But there's that thought process.
But then there's also the thought process that when, how do you make sure that someone understands like the creative esthetic portion? So I think that someone listening is like great. I understand like the ordering. Someone like is told what to order, they handle the ordering. But even when it comes to like design presentations, there still is like an aesthetic standpoint of that. How are you helping design assist firms find aesthetic matches as well?
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And we, you know, we have portfolios submitted to us and we share that with firms as well, so they can kind of look that through. I think it's also important to understand that, you know, in my own firm that my seniors still maintain creative. Right. Creative direction. So like, you know, I don't, I don't want to like overemphasize it to the point that this person or this design assistant could come in and do a full on project for you.
That's, that's not the case. They're, they're more going to do like junior role stuff.
A lot of my design assistants or my, what we call remote juniors in our, in my firm, they've gotten to a point where they can make reselections and they, you know, if something's out of stock or something's not quite working or you know, they can, they can reselect it.
But in terms of like the creative portion, I would highly emphasize that the seniors still do that. I'm not trying to say, hey, you know, this can, this can fill that void.
When I talk about like putting presentations together, what my seniors have found is, hey, like my seniors can do what I call a quick and dirty presentation. They can just drag pictures in and then the remote junior can make it pretty, can crop things out, can line everything up, can put the descriptions and all that on there. So perfect.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: Okay, so design Assist designers come proficient in cad, presentation, layout, vendor communication, invoicing, ordering.
But for a studio owner who has always done everything themselves, what does that delegation actually look like in practice? And where do you recommend people start if they're like, this sounds great. I don't want to be doing X, Y, and Z anymore. I'm not ready to take someone on full time. Where do you think is, like, a good place for someone to get their feet wet with this concept?
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. And then that's always a concern is, like, how do I delegate it? Like, how do I do it? And so, like, what we've set up is we don't, you know, we don't just place a person with you and kind of wash your hands clean of it. We have HR leads who are kind of behind the scenes. And for every 20 people or so that we place, we have an HR lead there to make sure everything's going smoothly and everything is, you know, up to their satisfaction.
But part of that HR lead's, you know, role is to make sure there's a good transition and to make sure that they understand good communication methods.
And also, a lot of those HR leads have been in that role. As a remote junior, we kind of strategically did that because they know how the process works.
But in terms of kind of handing stuff off, I think I found we have a remote that works for us. When I say us, me and my sister, we're partners in our design firm, and so we take on projects, we have a remote who helps us out with that, and we normally start with, hey, okay, here are the CAD files. Can you start with just kind of plugging in some general furniture to understand layouts, understand how it's going to flow, and they're pretty proficient in that.
And then from there, once we understand that, a lot of times what we do is we'll put an email together and we'll say, hey, this is the living room, and here are the links for the pieces we want you to actually add in the living room. Here's the sectional. Here's, you know, here the. Here's the chair. Here's the rug. Here's the lamp, whatever may be in there. We'll put all those links together, and we'll continue on throughout the home like that. She'll go ahead and space plan that, and she'll drop it into a presentation for us.
And then after that, we'll jump on a call and we'll kind of go through it. Hey, you know, that looks a little tight. This looks a little, you Know, a little small for that space and we'll just refine it from there. So that's been a good workflow for us.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: One more question about workflow. When someone hires someone through Design Assist, is there. It's up to the firm as far as how they want communication to happen. There's not like a design assist slack specifically that they're supposed to use.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Like you get to onboard someone the way that's comfortable for your firm.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Exactly. We want people to stay in their current workflow and we want people to understand, like you treat this person like another employee that you're onboarding.
So we're gonna put them in your workflow and they're gonna learn how you work.
I get a lot of people who say, who talk about VAs and stuff like that where they've used virtual assistants and they've tried em for like one off project basis and they haven't had a ton of success with it.
With us, we've had a lot of success because we're integrating someone into your firm. They're becoming your team member. They're learning how you function.
You know, they're learning that you want your shower valves at this height and you want your, you know, and so there's, you know, over time, you train them to really become that expert in your firm and to be able to essentially, you know, do the lifting that you need.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Okay, Reid, now I'm getting to the hard questions. Cause these are the things that really matter to me.
There's a conversation, there's a version of this conversation that could easily go in the wrong direction. And framing this as a way to cut corners or find cheaper labor or skip over, like the younger design generation here in the States.
Can you speak to how you actually think about what Design Assist really is and what it isn't in that sense for sure.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: So in my own firm, I never replaced someone with a remote junior or a design assistant. That was never my goal.
My goal was to basically provide help and assistance so that my people here stateside who are great, who are really creative, can excel in what they're good at.
So I would never advocate for replacing people here Stateside. I would advocate for making your team stronger and better.
Now, obviously the other part of that equation is, hey, like, are we taking advantage? Are we, you know, using cheap labor? Like, what does that look like on the other side? Or in the Philippines, we actually pay above industry standard versus what they get in the Philippines. And we do that for a. We want them to provide a good life for Themselves, but we also, you know, we want to retain them.
And for the 25 I have in my own firm, I've probably had three or four turnover in five years.
I think one was one of the girls got pregnant and she just wanted to be a stay at home mom.
And then I think we had one that was kind of a dud. And you're going to get that in staffing that just didn't work out and the other two just found other positions somewhere else.
But again, we pay above industry standard. And the other thing that is really a benefit and that people don't realize here, but for our team in the Philippines, the one thing they love is they love the work from home flexibility.
And the reason they love that is traffic in the Philippines is horrific.
And if they had a job over there, it would take them an hour on, on average to get to work and an hour on average to get home. And so they also save two hours of their day by going this route.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Can you talk about why this is a non negotiable for you and what it means for the caliber of work your designers bring to the table? So if you're paying them above industry standard, they get the benefit of working from home and not having to sit in traffic.
What are those things bringing to the table from our firm side? Like why are these non negotiables and how do you ensure that those non negotiables are maintained?
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah, when you say why are our pay structure non negotiable, is that what you're asking?
[00:25:13] Speaker A: I guess, yes. And also I'm going to get more into the pay structure questions but like what are other things that are, like we won't bend on this, like this is non negotiable. It will never be less than X rate or whatever that is. What are things that you're doing to ensure that like your designers in the Philippines are not taken advantage of or not being overworked or any of those things?
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, for sure. We, I think the other, the other side of that is we've actually set up a business over there.
And so we have an entity in the Philippines and the reason we've done that is to, you know, more than just making them a contractor, they become an employee of that business and they're able to get the proper healthcare, they're able to get, you know, the, to allocate to their Social Security, all that stuff.
So that's been really important to us.
I think the other thing to understand is we've hired a team over there who is on the back end who is responsible for making sure that they're comfortable and they're feeling happy.
So we have HR people. They're not just kind of out there on an island on their own, but they're definitely supported from our side as well.
Yeah. It's funny, I was over there, like I said in May, and I meet with my team when I'm over there, but they're always.
And I don't feel this way at all. But when I walk into the room, it's almost like they're starstruck. And I'm like, I'm not that important.
But they love the job.
And I tell them I'm not an important person. I'm starstruck to see you guys because you guys do such a great job for us.
But they just, they love the job. They love the opportunity we provided for them. And so it's just. Yeah, it's been great. It's been a win, win.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Okay, so benefit of outsourcing. You know, those more, I'd say, mundane or laborious tasks that can free up your lead designers, your mid level designers, those people who have now been on your team, like you said, you've had people on your team for five years now with very little turnover. How does it work from like a, like pay grade structure? Like, are there raises involved over time? Is that something someone should plan for? Like, how does that change, especially when you're looking for retention with someone?
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Right, so we do a.
We at a minimum do a 4%, what we call cost of living increase.
And that's just across the board. That's annually.
So that's definitely something we do. We set up kind of a hierarchy in our team over there. So we have remote juniors and we have remote junior leads.
And that has given them the ability to feel like they can have some progression.
So that's been really important. And then we have just kind of the standard, you know, annual check ins. And, you know, they, they approach our HR team and just say, hey, like, you know, I feel like I've worked hard, I need a raise. And we always consider those things, just like we do here stateside.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: So design assist is handling those things. Those aren't things that our design firms would be handling.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: That's correct. That's correct.
[00:28:26] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Okay. Great.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, we're not just putting a design assistant with you, but you have an HR person to lean on to help with those things.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Amazing. Okay, so for the designers listening, who's resisted delegation because they just, they genuinely believe, like, no one can do it the way that they do.
Pep talk us through that.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: I think it depends. Look, I think it depends on your goals.
You know, if, if you want to grow and if you want to get bigger, then you've got to learn how to delegate. I mean, it's just part of it. I mean you can't continue to have, you know, your high value time. You're, you're the most important person in your company doing these back end type, you know, type jobs or type, you know, things.
You're just not going to grow that way. Now I understand there's people out there who don't want the growth and that I get it. Like, you know, that works for you, but if those are your aspirations, then you just have to, you got to bite the bullet.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Are you running your design firm with a patchwork of tools? Materio brings it all into one intuitive system. Finally, try it
[email protected] and get 50% off your first month as an interior collective listener. That's G E T M A T E R I O dot com. I think there's, I think there's also a conversation to be had for people who aren't looking to grow, but people are looking to sustain. People who have families and are doing, you know, a six hour shift after the kid goes to bed to do these sorts of tasks.
And I think that this is a really interesting concept for that person as well. They're not looking for a team of 25, but they want to spend their day doing the creative work and not be working 20 hour days in between managing their family.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: And I think that's totally fair. And I know every designer who listens to this and I know every designer on my team has spent late nights trying to meet deadlines and sometimes those late nights are more than you want. And so this, I've had a lot of people say, hey, this has totally like given me that time back where I don't have to burn the candle at both ends sometimes and I'm able to spend more time with my family.
You know, it's funny, at High Point, you know, I was in the alder tweed furniture booth, but I had four or five people come like proactively come to that booth to show me how great it's been for them to show me the presentations their, their remote juniors put together or help them put together to show me the output and just tell me how thrilled they are with it. So it's, it's really been a total game changer for a lot of people.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: So Alder and Tweed now works with more than 20 remote junior designers. I think you said 25 actually is where you're at. What, what has that allowed you personally to focus on and what has it meant for your firm's ability to grow without the overhead that typically comes from a team of that size?
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Right. So I would say kind of what we've seen is I probably, you know, at our peak, from our peak, I have less staff here stateside and I didn't again, I wasn't trying to replace like people, but we had people move on and whatnot long term and I just haven't rehired.
But I would say I have about 70% of the staff I had at my peak.
Those are supported now with remote juniors and we did last year. We had a record year. I think we were, you know, we were in the range of 35 to 40 million is what we did. Whereas at our peak I think we did 25.
So I was able to, you know, do much more with less staff here stateside.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Okay, let's talk about what happens if someone is not a great fit. And not a great fit can happen for a lot of reasons. It could be because someone's really not ready to delegate. It could be because that person did not have the qualifications that the firm was looking for. How do you handle that on your head? And what does your quality guarantee actually look like in practice in day to day?
[00:32:45] Speaker B: So first off, when someone signs up with us, their maximum exposure is 30 days in our contract, 30 days notice. They can get out at any point.
And we do that because we know it works.
And so like you're not, we're not asking you to sign some like long term contract or anything like that.
But you know, when, when there's an issue and it does happen, you know, we in design assist, I think we've placed about 100 now and I think we've had about three or four issues, I would say. So it's, it's been pretty good.
Out of those, I would say about half of those, we were able to find a better fit.
Actually, one of the girls who, one of the ladies who approached me in High Point to show me how well it's gone. She had an issue up out, you know, from the onset we found her a better match and now she's thrilled.
So you've got that.
I would say the other two, you know, it just, they had a, they had a hard time making it work.
You know, they were kind of one of those people who just Worked a certain way and adjusting their workflow is difficult.
So. But again, you know, we're there to help. Like, it's not, hey, here's your design assistant. Good luck. It's, hey, lean our HR leads to make sure you get the right fit, to make sure everything's working out for you.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: How do you feel the, like, team camaraderie is with having, you know, your juniors abroad? Do you feel like teams still get close and are friendly with each other, or does it feel, like very professional and it's like, just work talk back and forth? How does. Because I feel like for a small team, that sort of, like, vibe means something.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: I think, if I think to have the most success, I think that's very important.
And so I tell my teams, at a very minimum, you need to be on a video call together at least once a week, face to face. Like, camera's on, get to know your person, get to know each other, be casual with each other. But I think that creates a better culture within the teams, and it creates camaraderie so that ultimately you get the best outcome.
So I hear people that have design assistants who have really gotten to know their people talk about, you know, parts of their lives, how they, like this movie or like that movie or how they went and, you know, did this over the weekend, whatever it may be. The people who really invest, just like a standard employee here stateside who really invests in their people, they get the best outcome. So I highly emphasize getting on those video calls, talking to your people, getting to know them, because I think it makes a huge difference.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Not to mention, I mean, there's definitely gotta be work trips involved. You have to be able to go visit the Philippines, right?
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Seems like a good example.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: The Philippines is actually really nice. I love it over there.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: Yeah, totally.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: 100. I've really enjoyed my. My time over there. And I've been going, you know, I mentioned my. My father and. And my mother, they started an importing business. They were doing lighting, and they were importing out of Asia. My dad, from when I was 8 years old would just take me along on work trips. So I've been going to Asia my entire life. And I've been all over Asia from China to, you know, different places, and I've had some interesting experiences. But one place I've really loved is the Philippines. It's really pretty. The people are great.
You know, it's. It's a really nice spot.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Everyone I know who's been there has loved the Philippines. So I think it's a great reason to get to go check in on your team.
Okay, let's talk about what type of studio you think benefits most from design assist right now. Is this for someone who's just starting to grow, someone who's already kind of mid scale? Maybe they have like five full time employees or does it, it really like work across the board?
[00:36:49] Speaker B: I, I think it works across the board. And everyone's going to be like, well, you're going to say that because it's your business, but I really. We have design firms that run the gamut. I have solopreneurs who are like, I want to scale, but I'm nervous about scaling and I don't want to, you know, I'm nervous about hiring someone stateside who might cost me 70, 60, 70,000 a year. And how do I crack that nut each month that, that makes me nervous. This is a good way to transition into that to help you scale without the huge expense.
I have mid sized firms who are just like, well, you know, I, again, I've got these great people, I want to further support them.
And then I have larger firms who, you know, they ask us just to recruit for people who specialize. They, you know, I have a large firm right now who just wants renderers who are really proficient in rendering or you know, specific revit people or cad, you know, whatever it may be.
So it really does scale the gamut.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Designers, I hear a lot in something. Part of this podcast is like working to fight, but like that. This industry is very secretive and it's something I feel like is changing over the last, you know, five to 10 years. It's becoming more open. But designers are often really protective, and rightfully so, of their client relationships and their brand voice and their proprietary information.
How do you help studio owners integrate a design assist designer in a way that feels invisible to the client? Or do you encourage that clients are aware that like, you know, Sally's also on the team? How, how do you navigate that?
[00:38:29] Speaker B: I, I mean you can you honestly, I, I can see it both ways.
I have some of my. And everyone has a different workflow, right? So like in my design firm, I have some seniors who, they're just behind the scenes, they're not client facing. And I have some who are like, hey, can you join our zoom call?
Can you just take notes?
The one that my sister and I use, her name's Janelle.
We have her join our zoom calls and she take notes and then she knows what to run with. She knows that she needs to adjust the sofa or adjust this or change the fabric out here or whatever.
So I think you can go either way. I think it's just a function of your workflow.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Are there any sort of like NDA protection? So like someone who's, you know, we've got Janelle working with us and then maybe Janelle also has another client or are we gonna, if we have her full time, Janelle's really only working on us. And if that's, I guess that's part one and then part two is if someone does move on.
What type of protections do we have for like this was learned at our studio, but now it's being applied at another studio.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. So we have, we have a contract. Design Assist would have a contract with the design firm or design studio that is, you know, working with us.
And that covers all that. That, hey, your information is proprietary. It's not shared. You know, all that stuff's covered. And then, and this is another important reason we have a business over there in the Philippines. We have a contract with that design assistant that they know that, hey, like this is proprietary information. Like, you're not to share this with anyone. You may be working with clients who, you know, are well known names. Like, none of that, like, you know, none of that is to be shared. And so we have kind of both ways everything contractually sound so that you don't have to worry about that. I've never had a problem with that.
It's never, you know, come up in my own firm or with the people we work with with Design Assist.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Okay. For someone who's never managed another person before, let alone a person abroad, what do you feel like they need to have in place before bringing on a Design Assist designer to set that relationship up for success from day one? Like for instance, should every process be completely written out? Like, do things have to be really buttoned up? Could someone come in and help them get stuff buttoned up or what? What should be intact for this to really work?
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think they can help you button it up. I think it's, you know, you're going to get obviously further and you're going to get a quicker start if you've got your processes buttoned up. But I realize that's not always reality.
Look, I mean, these people that, you know, that we're placing, they understand how Design Firm works. They have all the tools that a standard designer, you know, would need. And so they can come in and help you with that. They've worked in other design firms. They can also assist with that. I think at the bare minimum, what I would say is make sure you've got, you know, whether it's Google or Microsoft, make sure you have those tools so you can communicate, so you could store files in certain places so that you can, you know, put task lists together and all that. I think if you have that, I think you can.
You can kind of go from there. And this, like I said, this person could help you build out the processes if needed.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: This is a super technical question, and this is me geeking out, but.
So Design Assist designers can help with presentations. Should you have, like, a templated presentation ready or they also like semi graphic designers and could design the presentation framework themselves or, like, go in, have a template, let them fill in the blanks.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: I think if you saw their portfolios, you'd realize that they could design a presentation themselves. They're really pretty. They do a really nice job with them. So do they have the graphic experience? Yes.
If you already have your own template, great. They'll run with that as well. So either way, perfect.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Okay, so, Reid, looking back at Alder and tweed and now Design Assist, what is one thing you know about scaling a business now that you really wish someone had told you earlier?
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's a great question. It's harder, it's extremely hard to scale retroactively.
So, like, it's better to get ahead of it.
As you get bigger, you go from turning a.
You know, when you're smaller, you're kind of like a speedboat. You can maneuver around, no problem. When you get bigger, it's like you're turning a battleship.
So, you know, it's just slower, it takes more time.
So I would say it is worth its weight in gold to take a step back and to get your ducks in a row and to make sure you have your system and your people in place.
I know that's scary. And sometimes that may require you to say, hey, like, or pass up a potential project. That could be great.
In the long term, it's going to pay off. I promise that.
So I would not be scared to turn out, turn down a project to get your ducks in a row. It's. It's worth it.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Okay, so what does the next chapter for Design Assist really look like? Where is this going, and what are you most excited about building?
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think our goal is to make Design Assist just a tool to make designers in general more efficient.
So I think we look at long term having, you know, kind of like you talked about having places where people can communicate together, places where People can, you know, put task lists together for their different team members.
I think long term, we want to build out kind of a dashboard to make it super easy, super seamless and super easy and super simple.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Okay. And then lastly, for the designer who's sitting on the fence after hearing this conversation about maybe it's Design Assist, maybe it's just the concept of maybe I need to start outsourcing something.
What do you want them to know before they make that call?
[00:44:52] Speaker B: You know what? I. I would say, hey, you know, don't feel committed if you make the call. Like, just call us and let's talk it through and we'll see if it's a good fit for you or not. Like, don't. Don't feel like you're wasting our time or don't feel like, you know, like there's any level of commitment. Like, let's just discuss it and make sure it works. Let's understand how you work, how your firm works, and see if we can help you.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Well, Reid, this was super fascinating. I am already, like, running my brain through. I'm like, wait, how can I use Design Assist? What can I outsource? Thank you so much for your time for walking us through all the minute details and I'm really excited about what you're building.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I appreciate that last thing. Design Assist is spelled with a Z, so it's D, E, Z, I, G, N. So it's designassist.com with a Z.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Perfect. And we'll have everything linked in the show notes for everybody, click straight over and of course, reach out to their team. If you would like to schedule a call and and just learn more about it and how it could fit into your studio.
[00:45:53] Speaker C: For more in depth analysis of this interview, including exclusive downloads, examples and more, don't forget to subscribe to the Interior Collective on Patreon. We are building an amazing private community of interior designers and industry experts open to candid conversations and answering questions. Join us on Patreon in the show notes
[email protected] the Interior Collective. Thank you so, so much for tuning into this episode. Producing this show has truly been the only honor of my career and I cannot believe I get to have these conversations.
A big, huge thank you to our production team at IDCO Studio in Quinn Maid. Your contribution literally makes this podcast feasible and the biggest thank you to you, our listeners. Your sweet notes, DMs and reviews mean so much to us as we work to keep our show free and always accessible. Until next time, I'm Anastasia Casey. And this is the Interior Collective, a podcast for the business of beautiful living.
