[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hi and welcome back to the Interior Collective. I'm your host, Anastasia Casey. Today's conversation is one I think a lot of interior designers are going to feel deeply seen by I'm joined by Bree Usry, and together we're unpacking a dynamic that quietly shapes almost every design studio. The Split between the visionary and the enforcer. Designers are often asked to hold two opposing roles at once. On one hand, you're expected to be the creative leader, the person with the tastes, the clarity, the vision. On the other, you're also expected to enforce boundaries, manage approvals, push timelines forward and uphold fee structures.
But when both of those identities live in the same person, something starts to fracture. In today's episode, Bri and I explore why that split happens, where it shows up most clearly in real projects, and how it impacts everything from client trust to profitability to a designer's sense of authority. We also talk through the structural and operational fixes that help protect the principal's role and keep designers in the visionary role clients believe they're hiring them for. If you've ever felt the tension between leading creatively and enforcing operationally, or notice moments when your authority starts to blur, the this conversation will give language and structure to something you have likely been experiencing for years.
This season is presented by Laloy, the family owned home textile brand known for its innovative craft and meticulous design. At High Point Market this spring, Laloy just debuted Rain a rug collection with a new and rare construction along with a fresh season of rugs, pillows and wall art in collaboration with Rifle Paper Company. See everything new at leloyrugs.com that that's L O L O I rugs.com and follow loloy rugs on Instagram and TikTok. Today's episode is sponsored by Design Assist, the staffing solution built for interior design firms. Starting around $12.50 an hour, it's professional production support with full time overhead. Scale smarter with designassist.com IDECO that's design with a Z.
Hello Bre and welcome to the show. I am so glad this is finally happening. Thank you so much so much for being here.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: I'm thrilled to be here too. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: I feel like this is such an important topic and something like so close to my heart. So I'm ready to really dive in deep with you on this. But I think to start Bri, I want to start at a high level. You have this concept of visionary versus enforcer and how there's a split between the two what do you actually mean by that in the context of an interior design studio?
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So most designers find themselves in both of these roles. You know, on one hand they're the visionary of the studio. They're the visionary, client facing they.
And in that role, they are kind of the bringers of magic. That is where they operate at likely their highest selves.
They invite the client into expansion and possibility. And like, I'm sure if you're a visual person, you can like visualize what a cartoon character of the visionary looks like. Right.
And then on the other hand, you are also in the role of the enforcer. And that role is a very opposite posture from the visionary. That role invites, you know, containment, introduces consequence. You're enforcing policies and boundaries and having course correcting conversations.
And when both, while both of those roles internally can live within the same person and do externally, client facing is what we're really talking about today. And it's very difficult for a client to reconcile those opposing postures happening within the same person.
Hmm.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Okay. So we're positioning this not so much in like how you manage your team. We're talking about this just from a client facing side.
When, when do you first start noticing this pattern show up consistently with designers? This, this opposing force having difficulty for the client recognizing it. And is there a specific moment or is it like a slow realization over time?
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think for me, because I have the vantage point that I have in working with multiple studios, it's easier for me to recognize patterns.
And when I see something happening across multiple studios, regardless of size, personality, it becomes clear that it is a structural issue rather than, you know, a personality issue.
And I would find myself realizing that I projects would be going beautifully and then all of a sudden my clients were having discussions with me about client behavior. And it was usually after a designer had to show up in that enforcer posture around something. And it could be something pretty benign like following up on a late or overdue invoice, but once that code switch happened, that's when the friction was introduced into the relationship and the designer started having to be vigilant about the relational aspect of the project and managing that part of it.
Yeah.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Why do you think interior designers specifically are so often expected to hold both of these roles at once?
[00:06:10] Speaker B: I mean, I think it's a couple of factors. One, just the way most studios are structured, they're founder led and it is a creative business. So you have the unique position of you are the leader of the creative in your business. And I have never met a Designer whose business would benefit from them offloading that responsibility.
And then you're also the CEO, you're the founder, your name is on the door. And so you are managing all the financial, all the operational, every aspect of the business. Right.
And I think the other piece of that is that anything that fits into the enforcer bucket are the things that carry the risk. They're the high stakes things that are really, really important to the success of the business and the success of a project. But you know, we're talking about really high stakes things. And on that enforcer side, can you
[00:07:19] Speaker A: walk me through some of these things that you think are on the enforcer side? Like what are some of those rules that you think are falling over there? So someone who's listening can start to wrap their head around like, oh man, I do need to start to differentiate these two roles.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean anything procedural or operational that, that should be neutral. You know, things like talking about timelines, scope, invoicing, any decision, touch points, basically anything that is not design in, in terms of the, the creative side. So, And I think what's difficult is I think we all know that if you look at a project as a whole, we all know that those moments where you get to truly be in that visionary role are kind of few and far between in the full scale of a project.
Those touch points with the client where you get to show up in that posture aren't many. And so it's really important that when you do get to show up in that way, you're received in the best way possible. And, and your leadership around that visionary role is at the altitude at which you know you're going to create a meaningful amount of trust there.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: So let's talk about why this actually happens. Structurally. What are the like upstream pressures that push designers into becoming both the creative leader and the role enforcer? And I know you touched on it. I mean, they're usually founder led. But as you mentioned that when, when we're talking about hiring, we often talk about a junior designer's probably not actually the first hire you should be making. And it's usually someone on the oper side is what we typically teach at Design Camp and others. But what are some of the examples or pressures that you see that cause people or prevent people from, from making this structural, significant change?
[00:09:50] Speaker B: I mean, I think we talked a little bit about it.
What prevents a principal from making that change is, is the fact that, like I said, those things are the risky parts of the business. They carry the high stakes.
I think also I don't know a designer who hasn't poured a tremendous amount of blood, sweat, tears, financial investment, their whole hearts into their business.
And so it's very difficult to.
Not be, not have the desire to be so closely enmeshed into every tiny piece of the business.
But then I'll also say, you know, from the client's perspective, I think there's upstream narratives around design that cause the friction around the split of these roles, which I could take us down a really long windy path about that. But I'll keep it to, you know, the, the topic of this is, I think that design is widely understood through the general public. It, it became legible through beautiful imagery.
That's how it's understood. But the reality is that design is a discipline and a practice that is highly rigorous, highly detailed. Highly is not just the beautiful end product. You are coordinating across multiple collaborators and a broader project team. You're handling financial stewardship of a project.
There's so much coordination and sequencing and we know. Right. But that rigor isn't read by the public.
Most of the time it's not visible.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: How much of this do you think comes from how design looks from the outside versus how it actually functions day to day? So I'm a client, I'm working with my designer. They're the face of the brand and I envision them being the one holding my hand throughout the whole process.
How do you think a designer could start to articulate that that's not how it's going to happen?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Well, I will say you are, you're the leader of your team. Your team is an extension of your leadership and your authority.
So the team is shepherding the client and holding their hand throughout the whole process.
But the designers, I want to be clear that the designer still holds that authority.
But the day to day execution around the enforcer, things get executed by the team.
The designer is intentionally coming in in the places where their leadership really matters and can contribute at their highest level.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: I see it constantly that principals absorb everything by default.
Why does enforcement, being the one who has to have the hard conversations, always seem to funnel back to the studio owner, even if you have set up the systems to have the enforcer actually be someone else on the team?
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Well, I think a lot of people don't have the right systems. First of all, I will say in order for it not to funnel back. Because I think if you have the systems and the rules are in place and you have escalation pathways and all of that, if things are still funneling back to you, that's an ownership problem of the team.
But most of the time it's a systems problem where those systems don't exist. And so the team is kind of unsure of where the boundaries lie and things feel a little flexible or bendable or inconsistent. And so they feel the need to check in and make sure, am I okay to do this? Am I going down the right path here? Is this, is this allowed?
And then, you know, there's also a capacity problem that if, if you reach a point where everything compounds, you have enough projects and you're managing many relationships, it's a capacity problem where even if you have that structure in place where a, say, lower level admin person or a, you know, operator type role can execute, at some point you reach a threshold where that is no longer sustainable and that person that is in charge of the enforcement has to have a little bit more autonomy. It has to be a person that has discernment and judgment and their own kind of authority so that there's not that constant funneling to the principal.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: One thing I've learned just in my own studio, I mean, she's been with us for, gosh, four years now, but our studio director, prior to hiring her, I was the one sending invoices. I was the one receiving client feedback, getting it to the team of who needed it to be. And like the moment that got delegated to our studio director, like my life instantly lifted. The, the. I could stay friendly and charming and lovely with clients when we did have interactions, but I wasn't, not every single email that got sent out was like an emotional decision. There wasn't the weight of like, okay, by sending this, is this going to affect our working relationship or I really love that client so I'm not going to add those extra three hours that it took me to spend that I wasn't expecting it to. And so I completely, completely am on board with this concept of visionary versus enforcer. I'd love if you could walk us through in your mind a small to medium sized studio, for example, you know, I'm talking like a team of five people. Maybe what structure you think helps to uphold these processes so that not everything is bottlenecking, going straight back to the, to the founder.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think in a, in a smaller studio there's, there's, it's the systems and the structure that has to be in place. And that would include some decision frameworks, you know, who makes decisions, how it's documented what happens after those decisions are finalized.
You also have to have very clear SOPs and that are not just execution based, but I would say language based, because to your point, I wanted to piggyback off of what you just said, because design is such intimate work.
If you want to give the client a space at the end of a project that is an extension of who they are and how they live, you get to know them so deeply, you are enmeshed.
You know their family, you know their dog's name, you know the kids, sports.
And so that inherently makes it difficult to.
Because you want to nurture that, you want to foster that. That intimacy so that you can get to where you're trying to go.
And so it's hard to introduce what we perceive as. As what should be neutral starts to feel personal.
Just like you were saying, like you didn't want to bill for those three hours. Maybe, you know, you should.
But the person that's in charge of sending those invoices doesn't have that personal relationship with the client. And so they're able to keep it real neutral, real clear.
And of course, then there's escalation paths or matrix matrixes to. To say, if we reach this level of escalation, that is, when the principle comes in, it prevents the principle from stepping in too early.
There's clearly defined spots where it says, okay, we've tipped over now.
Now it's time for you to get the client on the phone or jump in this email thread or whatever.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Okay, that is.
You're blowing my mind right now because I'm like, I've never even considered an escalation path. I'm like, yeah, when Kendall needs me, if Kendall's like, I can no longer handle this, or like you said, I don't know, is this okay for me to send? Then that's when she comes to me. So what does an escalation matrix like, look like?
[00:19:38] Speaker B: It looks like. Well, I mean, it can. It depends. I think it's hard because it really depends on the principal and what they're comfortable with and their personal tolerance for constraint, for ambiguity, for whatever.
But I think it looks like thinking through possible scenarios as part of training whoever this person is that is, you know, carrying out the execution part of this is if the client responds to this in an emotional way, then you put it up the flag pole to me.
And that could look like, okay, if this happens, you go to the principal, you talk about it, you can strategize, and then the principal could offer some additional context or recommendations and directives of what to do and how to handle that.
And that could be like the first step in escalation, but then if it continues, then okay, now the principal comes in and gets on that meeting or gets the client on the phone or responds in that email thread.
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Are you running your design firm with a patchwork of tools? Materio brings it all into one intuitive system. Finally, try it free at getmaterio.com and get 50% off your first month as an Interior Collective listener. That's G E T M A T E R I O.com when you're working with your clients and setting these up, do you have like a list of of essentially like instances that you would include in this matrix that you're like these are kind of benchmarks where where questions sometimes can arise. So this is like where we're working from. And then let's also dig into where you have had hiccups in the past that maybe aren't on this list or is every single time. Do you recommend that everybody starts from, from square one of these are the potential speed bumps in a project that might have to be escalated. And so that's where we're building our matrix from.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that matrix is like a living document. So you treat it as, when things do happen, as robust as that can be, the better, you know, if and when you encounter something. Because there's always new surprises around every corner, it seems like.
So let's say for example, you, you have an admin person that's in charge of sending invoices, sending follow ups, adding late fees to invoices, things like that.
And the client, you know, let's say your contract says on the 15th, late, late fees get added to the contract and you have a client reach out and say, hey, can you waive this late fee? I'm so sorry that I missed it.
And let's say that's the first time that has happened in your business. Then you go to the decision, the escalation pathway and say, okay, if a client asks for this, if it's the first time, no need to come to me automatically waive it as long as it's not past, you know, I don't know, 22 days.
And then here's what you can say in the email.
Like, here's a, here's a form email that says, yes, we're happy to waive this fee as long as you can pay it today. Make sure you link the invoice and the email, whatever, whatever.
The, the point is to make that documentation as clear and as complete as possible to avoid that coming to you and saying, is this okay? Or, or.
I see a lot of times like principals want their team to send an email to them to look over before it gets sent out to a client just to approve it.
And I think at some point in the escalation path, that's fine.
But trying to avoid that, that's the culture set up, you know. Yeah.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Okay. And then Bri, I'm also so curious, where do you like this information to live? Like, what does the actual output look like? Like, is this a spreadsheet? Is this a Google Doc?
How do you like this to be formatted for to be really applicable within a studio and not feel like more work for everybody?
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So one thing about me is I am a big Stan of asana. I love asana. It is my.
I don't have a single client that I haven't gotten onboarded onto Asana.
Because the way that I like to operate with my, you know, retainer clients is that Asana becomes the operational backbone of the studio, and that is like the source of truth for everything. All the SOPs live in there.
Every, you know, step, procedure, task, decision, approval, et cetera is in Asana. So it lives in Asana. In my case.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: What do you feel are like, the earliest warning signs that a designer's authority is starting to fracture? Like their authority with the client, where suddenly it feels like they're kind of getting rolled over by the client?
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the earliest sign is when the client starts treating the studio's authority as negotiable or flexible instead of something fixed. So.
And what's interesting is it can show up on both sides, the operational side and the creative side, and they feel very different to a designer. So if they show up on the operational side, it could look like a client kind of bypassing the terms around a.
How you like to receive feedback, let's say, and.
Or like bypassing a clause in your contract or something.
And to the designer, that feels like, this client's unreasonable. What is wrong with this client? I have clearly outlined this, what's happening, Whereas where it happens on the creative side, it's more like credibility testing.
So the clients will ask, are you sure you know, this works here? Or I feel like this chair might be too big. Do you not think this chair is too big?
And you feel like. Like I haven't spent hours studying the feasibility of this, the scale, the cohesiveness, the all the things and the story that we have is like, where did I lose your trust? How do you not trust me?
The expert you hired to do this very thing.
How are you questioning this? But it's actually like they're both representative of the same thing, even though they feel very, very different.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: That's such a good indicator that you wouldn't necessarily directly correlate. I'm glad you pointed that out.
You mentioned there's moments like overdue invoices or repeated boundary conversations, whether that's communication or, like you said, feedback.
Why are those such clear indicators that something deeper within the studio structure is off?
[00:29:38] Speaker B: It's because, though, you know, an overdue invoice is not a financial problem or financial situation, and a boundary conversation isn't necessarily really about boundaries. You know, it is about that fracture and authority that something has slipped, something, Because in theory, you have a clear contract, you have clear onboarding materials, you are clear in your communication all the way throughout the project, you know, in emails and Meeting notes and things like that.
And so it is, it does kind of start to make you feel crazy when you feel like you're doing everything right.
And there's still this pushback.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Absolutely.
So I think that there's also another level of this and it's client indecision and how that plays into the dynamic.
How does client indecision play into that? And why does a client's indecision often land back on the designer to resolve?
[00:30:55] Speaker B: I think client indecision is a containment problem or like a container problem.
When clients are indecisive, it's because there is room for them to be indecisive.
So it's normally an indicator that you haven't given them a clear container to make decisions within.
You know, we do a presentation, you have seven days to give us your clear feedback. It has to be compiled in a single email, written. Of course we collect the feedback during the presentation. But if there's any additional feedback, you have seven days to do that.
And then there's a set revision period to apply that feedback.
And let's say a client does come to you during that revision period, after the feedback window is closed, and says, you know what, on second thought, I was scrolling on Instagram the other day and I just saw this really cool tile or this really cool kitchen.
And now I'm rethinking the whole thing.
And depending on your studio you might say, okay, no problem.
However, here's the implications of that. We, you know, are going to have to update the project timeline because that is going to require us to restudy, rework, redocument, whatever it is, which will push construction documentation out four weeks, which will push permitting out four weeks, which will push everything downstream out. And so it's kind of a, Like I said, it's okay to adapt and go along with the client if they're unsure.
But most, I will say most of the time it's because it feels open ended. It feels like this is like a loosey goosey iteration process and like that there's some sense of like co authorship of the design or co creative, when most of the time that's not what we really want, you know? Right.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: There's just so many things that are affected when even just the tile gets swapped.
Okay, Brie, in that specific example, someone wants to redesign because they saw something cool on Instagram. Talking about those timeline changes, in your expert opinion, is the person describing those timeline changes, is that the designer, principal or is that the enforcer, someone on the team who's Talking through what those are. Or how would you coach someone to have that conversation? Because maybe it starts with the designer, and then they're like, I will have so and so follow up with how this affects the timeline, blah, blah, blah. How. How would you guide someone in that situation when the client's coming to the designer with the feedback?
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think ideally it would not be the designer having that conversation. It might be the designer that initially gets the client or somebody from the design team, let's say, gets the client's email or whatever, saying, I saw this really cool kitchen on Instagram. Let's talk about it.
And they might say, yes, absolutely. Happy to do that. Let me coordinate with whoever on the team is in charge of the timelines and the schedule and the process, and I'll get her to take a look at the Gantt chart or the schedule, see what the implications are of that, see if we can fit that in and what that would look like downstream. And I'll have her get back with you to, you know, share what that looks like.
Right, right.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Okay. So after you've worked with someone, even if they.
Maybe their studio didn't feel like it was totally fractured, but they were. You know, they're here listening to this, and they're like, yes, I need to start. I need to delegate those things. I need to step into this. After you've worked with someone and it's become.
It's been a successful change, how. How does it change the designer's posture? How do you see your clients shift in the way that they communicate with their clients and just kind of handle the studio in general?
[00:35:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, look, design requires deep, focused energy and attention and work, but so does business development.
And what I see immediately when that shift happens is this, like, growth mindset or this, like, development mindset of now that I'm not spending all the time and all my emotional labor lying in bed at night thinking about tone calibration of an email or, you know, God, if I do this thing, should I let the late invoice go so that we can first get them to approve the proposal, the FF&E proposal? If you're not spending. Doing all these relational gymnastics, you can spend that time evolving your studio, leveling up the design, thinking through the things that truly require you and you alone to.
As a. As a leader, you know, and so I have seen designers do some really cool stuff, you know, because it opens up the possibility for that the door becomes open.
You're not bogged down in the things that could be handled by a system or by someone else.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: Okay. I want to shift this conversation to, through the lens of a client experience.
So as a client with the very best intentions, I am a lovely client. I'm so great to work with and I think that sometimes things happen without any sort of intention. So let's just say I'm a lovely client working together.
What happens when I do sense that the visionary and enforcer roles are blurred in your perspective?
[00:37:44] Speaker B: I don't think the clients clock it like, I don't think they can name it. I don't think they realize that that's what's going on.
I think it's, it just diminishes the, the fact that, you know, I always come back to the fact that both of those postures are energetically so opposite at completely different ends of the spectrum that something in our brains, you know, as if you're a client, just can't like reconcile that.
It feels incongruent.
It doesn't make sense. It's like, I mean, I don't know if you think about it in terms of like another industry.
If you're, I don't know if you have an artist that you really admire and respect and you're commissioning a piece of, from that artist and you went through this whole woo woo, feel good process with them about what, you know, how you wanted the piece to be and all of that stuff. And then all of a sudden this like artist in a caftan is asking you, you know, saying like, well actually it's going to be another, you know, $2,000 because you missed the deadline for whatever like that would feel. So drawing to your system and does doesn't make sense with all the woo woo, flowery, feel good goodness that just happened two weeks ago. Right.
And so I think that like, I don't think the clients recognize it in the way where they're like, oh, that's what, that's what's going on. I'm having trouble that this, this person is in two different postures.
They just, they just know something is off.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: How have you seen this split of these roles directly affect like timelines, profitability, overall project outcomes?
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean timelines easy that that's a momentum killer. When any type of friction is introduced into a project, you're, you know, things kind of have to slow down or stop so that you can course correct and readjust and get things back on track in terms of profitability.
I mean we talked about the amount of emotional labor that that's happening on this front and A lot of times that doesn't get billed or you feel like you can't bill for it, there's a lot of strategy or internal conversations happening of how do we deal with Sally.
And then in terms of like project outcomes when that, that those roles start to blur and when trust starts to erode and things get a little muddy, there's likely going to be more client led decisions than designer led client approvals happening.
And so at the end of the project, when you're looking at the space, it is likely that it's not going to be as you initially intended because you lost some control there.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Bri, I want to back up to just something you just mentioned, talking about profitability.
And I know that there's going to be designers listening who are like, yes, Bri, this makes sense totally. But I don't have a team of people. Like, I am wearing all of the hats and I cannot make sense like I don't have the money to hire someone to do these things.
How, how can you help them rationalize either where they could find the money for that, how those hours could become billable, how it could be a profitability marker for them?
Because everything you're saying makes sense. Nobody wants to be the one who's sending the bills. But for some people listening, it's like, well, that just feels totally out of reach.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean every, if, if you were a solo designer and, and you ran your own studio and you hired, I think the first hire would be like a lower level admin person that you know is not salaried. They could be remote and they're just executing on a system that you have designed and approved.
And in that case, all of their hours are billable. If you're hourly and if you're flat fee, those hours need to be counted towards that allocation. But yeah, if they're sending emails, if they're following up, that's, that's project management. Project admin is billable.
There, there's nothing about that role that would be unbelievable. As far as I'm concerned. I would think their utilization rate would be 100%, you know, or 98%.
Um, so yeah, I, I would. And like I said, as you grow, then you start to need someone in that role with a little more leadership capabilities.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: Perfect. That brings me to another question I have. I hear just, even in like my friends text threads, people are like, okay, we just let, had to let XYZ role go and now we bring someone in.
I like, I want to train them to fit our systems and sometimes it's like, no, I really want someone who has experience that can come in and tell me what we should be doing. Do you have thoughts on like the level of expertise someone coming into this role really should have? Because I've heard you talk about their confidence and autonomy of decision making and to me that sounds like someone who has experienced experience in this. And everybody's always asking me like, well, where do I find those people who have experience in this? Or is there something to be said like that junior admin you were just talking about where it's like I have these processes you are just rinsing and repeating.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on the organization of your studio, what your org chart looks like, how, and also like how many projects you have, what financial situation your studio's in that determines where you're at on that spectrum of a junior person versus somebody at like a director level role, like a director of operations or studio manager.
But yeah, so I think, I mean, I think it depends on the studio of where you are.
But I will say, you know, well, this is what I do, right. Like I'm a fractional coo. And the benefit of having a fractional anybody, whether you have a fractional COO or fractional cfo, you get the benefit of their expertise and experience without having to have a full time salaried person on board.
And so that's a lever you can pull too, where we design these systems together, we set everything up and then we make those. We take a look at holistically, the whole picture, financially, organizationally, and decide what is best for the business.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk solutions.
Everyone's bought in. Yes. They don't want to be doing the hard icky stuff anymore.
So what does redistributing responsibility inside of a studio really look like in practice?
[00:46:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I, again, it depends on what level that person is. But let's say we start out at the lower level.
The very first thing you have to do. I will, I, I need to say before you hire somebody, if you're just embarking on this journey, is to design those systems, at least at a base level, you can still optimize them as you go and build onto it as things come up.
But you need to have, if you're going to start at a lower level role, you can't hire somebody that doesn't have the experience and expertise and expect them to relieve any of your pressure that you're feeling right now. So I would say like take that time to build the system Build the structure, build those escalation paths, make sure that all your ducks are in a row, documentation wise, process wise, et cetera, so that there is a clear system for that person to navigate within.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: So when you are onboarding with a, with a studio and you guys are assessing these things, what type of time commitment do you tell your, your clients to expect? Because this onboarding, like the concept of writing down all of our processes is so overwhelming. And so it's like, yes, I definitely want to delegate this to someone else. So let's say that I do want to hire someone to do this. A fractional COO or just like, I don't know if you even have like, just packages. Like you just set it up and then you walk away, whatever that looks like.
How much? I can't imagine you can do a whole lot without me helping you do that.
So what kind of a time commitment could someone expect to get these SOPs and these escalation pathways really hashed out?
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I wish that there was a magic pill. I wish I could say, you know, 99.99 and you'll get, you know, the whole system and it works for everybody.
But I think it's very specific to the client. So in my case, there's a diagnostic period. We take a, I take a look at everything. I'm digging through your Google Drive, I'm digging through your software, we're having conversations and then it's a, it's a prioritization exercise first, you know, where can the biggest impact happen?
What's going to make the most difference?
Also, like, I don't know, I have a client right now who just started, you know, a month ago maybe with me.
And our priorities are shifted to like the beginning of, of a client project and process because she's a, about to onboard a new client. And so like, while we might want to look holistically and, and, and go down other paths after that, the like, top priority right now is getting this client onboarded so that they can get that revenue and get the project going.
But it is not an easy or a quick process, which is why I would say if you're, if you have a smaller team, if you don't have somebody on your team that supports you operationally or even administratively, whatever you can do to document things as they are happening in real time. So let's say you are still in the position where you're the enforcer. You're sending an email to a client about a timeline shift or something.
Put any. And you're and you're proud of that. You feel like, I nailed this. This is great.
Copy that down. Put it somewhere, like in Asana or even a folder in Google Drive.
And like, it feels a lot less daunting if you can kind of do this as you go, rather than sitting down with a blank sheet of paper and saying, what is my policy on X?
It is like you are doing these things constantly, all day, every day. When you do the thing, try to document it.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: One of the things I always teach my team to do is if. And obviously we're a super digital company, we aren't like using samples a whole lot in person. But when they are doing something, record your screen with Loom, for instance, and then it'll outline it for you. It'll have chapters bookmarked, and it'll essentially have taken the notes for you. And it's a place that someone could go to watch you do what you just did. So, like, the very bare minimum, you can start with just screen recording as you're placing a purchase order, as you're doing a design presentation, any of those things. And that has been really, really helpful for studios who can't yet find, hire a full operations role.
What are some structural shifts that they can make immediately?
[00:51:25] Speaker B: I mean, I think exactly what we just talked about. Start by. Start with the system. Start by documenting things. I love your idea of the Loom, especially if there's. If it's like a technical or digital process that you need to have an SOP for, but start there.
It's not going to happen, you know, overnight, but start chipping away at it now.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: Do you have thoughts? I've heard other designers talk about this on the show.
When it comes to invoicing, do you have thoughts on having an alias email address that's accounting at Studio Name that is coming still from, you know, the sole principal, sole person show, but it is coming from a different email address with a different signature to help establish those boundaries a little bit. Or do you think that a client sees through that and it doesn't make a difference?
[00:52:31] Speaker B: I do have thoughts and I have heard this.
I'm not a fan of that idea only because I guess my personal barometer for transparency and integrity, that. That doesn't feel aligned with that.
I think it's totally okay if you're a solo designer running your own practice and you don't need to invent a fake person to take the tension off of that.
Yeah, that's. That's my thoughts. I'm not.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Well, I don't necessarily Mean inventing like you know, signing a Sally sue, but it would just be from accounting. It wouldn't be someone specific.
[00:53:23] Speaker B: Oh, I see. I mean, okay, that's a, that's a decent go between. I've heard it be like invent Sally Ann, you know, and, and Sally Ann is your, you know, bookkeeper.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: No.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, sure. Like, why not? As long as you're owning, like you're, the thing is, you're still the one that's gonna have to answer questions about that invoice. If there's questions.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:53] Speaker B: And if you, if you use a software system, like if you're billing time invoices through harvest or through QuickBooks, that's coming from that email address. Anyways, I don't think it makes a big difference.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: We talked about this a little bit. How pricing structure plays into it. I know you said like what you need to consider if you're going flat rate and you have someone in operations hourly, same way for someone who is billing hourly.
And let's say that they operate their studio with pricing tiers, Operations is at a different price point than the lead designer, principal designer. Do you have any thoughts as to someone who says, okay, this is technically going to be a pay cut? Because operations is, you know, those billable hours are only $95 an hour. But I'm at 250.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: Well, I am a big fan of a blended studio rate.
I need to say that. But.
It's all about your internal labor costs, right? That's what you have to look at. If, if you're hiring somebody to do these admin or operational tasks, what's important is, and you bill at a tiered rate, those numbers need to make sense. Right. The person that is doing that work that is not you, like you are at, you know, I don't know, say $200 an hour, whereas this person is at $30 an hour.
Again, yes, you're not getting the revenue from billing at your $250 an hour rate or whatever, but that is opening up time for you to spend your high value, high dollar time doing something that much more deserves your time.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: That or you know, having dinner with your family or. No, sure.
[00:56:02] Speaker B: I mean, who needs that?
But yeah, I mean, I think, I think that's the problem too with the tiered rate is like a client depending on how visible the roles are in your billing time logs and your invoices is if I was a client, I wouldn't want to see the principal billing me for 15 minutes to send a follow up on an overdue invoice like that would.
I'd be like, I'm paying $300 an hour for you.
But yeah, I don't know.
But I will say, I want to say in terms of like hourly versus flat fee, it doesn't really change this dynamic, but it makes the profitability piece of it much more visible depending on your billing model.
Because it's likely going to get absorbed in a flat fee model unless you've kind of planned for the worst case scenario.
Whereas if you bill hourly, you can bill for those internal conversations about what are we going to do about Sally? Or all the follow up and the email and the conversations that are being had.
So, yeah, it just makes it a little more.
There's a mechanism built in to tolerate that extra labor a little bit more.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: And Bri, because you brought it up, I would love if you could dig in a little bit to the blended studio rate you just mentioned. I'd love to know why you love it. You touched on like one aspect, but I have a feeling you probably have more than one bullet point as to why you believe a blended rate is a really good option for people to consider.
[00:57:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, number one, it removes that question of who should be doing this. You don't have to spend, you know, that extra labor of being like, we should have, you know, our junior designer do this instead of our senior designer so that the client doesn't get billed at that rate, even if it would better serve the project if the senior designer did.
Also signals, I think, a mature and highly talented team to the client. If you, if you have a blended rate, it's like, yeah, this reflects the level of seniority and talent that our team has.
And it also, for me personally, God, it makes my job so much easier and it makes the principal's job so much easier. When trying to calculate things or estimate things or in your financial spreadsheets that you have working on the project, it's so much easier to forecast, to calculate, to do quick back of the napkin math.
When you have a blended studio rate
[00:59:11] Speaker A: and you're using the term blended, which I actually hadn't heard before. So thank you for teaching me that amongst all the other billion things you taught me today.
When you are calculating that number, you use the term blended, does that mean that you are possibly lowering whatever that top principal rate was slightly to kind of average the number out? Or it's like whatever you think the top principal rate was in the past, like, that's your studio rate.
[00:59:36] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it depends on what that was, sometimes I come in and my clients are across the board under billing as far as, you know, I'm concerned.
And so that blended rate becomes higher than what the principal is, you know, billing. But if I would say their, their billing, tiered billing was more in line with like what I thought was appropriate across the industry or based on their studio, then yeah, again, it's much more an exercise in looking at the internal labor costs of each of your employees and making sure that there's a balance there in your blended rate that leverages the lower cost labor in the appropriate places. And same with like the principal who's the, the highest internal labor rate.
You want to make sure that there's a, there's a balance there profitability wise.
[01:00:44] Speaker A: Okay, I have a couple rapid fire questions to get through before I ask you specifically about getting to work with you and what someone could expect.
So where do you see designers unintentionally or unknowingly undermining their own authority during the proposal and contract stages?
[01:01:05] Speaker B: I mean, I think I will try to rapid fire answer. Contract is not the place for branding. It's not the place for vibes. It's not the place to add flexible language. It is signaling your authority, your professionalism and consequence. Right. Your proposal is where I see things like a little more subtle things like framing fees as discounts or adding in that like flexible language a little more.
And the proposal and contract is your, your first impression. It's the COVID of the book.
You need to start how you mean to go on because it's much easier to set those expectations in the beginning and be consistent all the way through than to like change it up midway.
[01:02:03] Speaker A: What is one boundary you think designers feel is too strict, but you have found that it actually creates more trust when it is clearly enforced?
[01:02:15] Speaker B: I don't have like one specific boundary. I think it's more about consistency.
I think what creates trust and doesn't feel bad for a client is when those boundaries are upheld consistently all the way through. What is a problem is if a boundary is introduced somewhere in the middle of the process that feels punitive. It feels like a punishment to the client. It feels personal.
[01:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I have.
Sorry I said rapid fire, but I have a follow up question.
One of the boundaries that I see really varies from one studio to another and it's mostly probably personality differences is appropriate channels of communication with a client. And some clients of ours are like, I am happy for my clients to text me all the time. It's no problem if I feel like setting a boundary. I'll. I'll just reply via email on Monday. I have other clients who are like, text is never okay. Like, everything has to be via email is, do you have the magic answer for what feels like someone is being warmly cared for, but also respecting, you know, the fact that their doctor doesn't text them all at all hours of the evening? I just feel like that's one question that comes up so often.
[01:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I personally feel really strongly that you should not text or take phone calls that are unscheduled from clients. And I think there's a myriad of reasons why I felt really strongly about that. But most importantly, it's the documentation piece of it.
I.
Being an operations person, like, I love my meeting notes. I want a historical record of the project that is reliable. That's the source of truth that you can come back to.
And God forbid, you know, anything ever happens. I hope no designer ever gets sued or finds themselves, you know, in litigation, but techs aren't going to cut it.
That one time you were on the phone while you were driving your kid to soccer practice and a big decision was made, but you remember it isn't going to cut it.
Yeah, you got to have that documentation. And it's.
It's, you know, if a client, if you state that up front and you hold it consistent. I've never. The studios that I work with that have that boundary and hold it very tightly.
No client has ever said anything about it. It's only when you start letting it happen, and then all of a sudden you stop letting it happen, then that's a problem.
But like you said, you're not texting your doctor, you're not texting your therapist. You know, even though, like, sometimes you might really want to.
That's. That's.
That's not allowed. And that's okay. And, and. And you. You. Your clients need to be able to operate within the professional container that you give them.
[01:05:31] Speaker A: Okay, so we are all sold. We're all like, great, I need a CEO. I need a fractional CEO.
Let's just talk about your offerings, what someone could expect from you. Obviously, there's going to be people offering different ones, but what type of tasks, roles, responsibilities, can you offer someone?
[01:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, as a fractional CEO, of course I handle all of the operational things, but in my work, I'm also a strategic thought partner.
That's the part of the work that gets me out of bed in the morning. I work with these incredibly talented genius women, and being a owner of A business is extremely lonely and it's really nice to have another adult in the room. It's nice to have another brain in the room.
And as, as far as on the operational side, I basically have three different offerings. I have a surgical, a holistic, and a sustained. The surgical is exactly what it sounds like. Very focused.
We meet, we focus on one thing and we move on. Holistic is more like diagnostic. We create a plan and a path forward, but there might be some implementation, but it kind of ends there. The bulk of the work and what I do is with my retainer clients, which is on the sustained side. And that is fully tailored to the needs of the studio. I have studios that I'm embedded in where I kind of act as a client facing operations person and then studios where we meet once a week. There's some implementation time in between. We're built, I'm building things independently, getting their feedback. We're doing some things together.
So it's really just based on the needs of the studio.
[01:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah, totally.
Okay. And as we wrap up, what is one belief designers need to let go of in order to fully step back into the visionary role?
[01:07:56] Speaker B: Ah, I love this question.
I think they need to let go of the belief that leadership requires their personal presence and involvement every step of the way.
It's something that is set, it is fixed, it permeates throughout everything and is understood by the team, by the client, so that it doesn't require your constant, vigilant presence the entire way through.
[01:08:37] Speaker A: I love that. I feel that so deeply and I hope everyone listening this to Breathe. This has been fantastic. This conversation was long overdue. Thank you for giving me so much of your time today. You've given me so much to think about. All right, fine. I will get on asana and I will start writing down our SOPs.
Thank you so much for joining us.
[01:08:58] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. I loved it.
[01:09:03] 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 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 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 made 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 events.
[01:10:02] Speaker A: A very special thanks to our presenting sponsor, Laloy, the makers of beautifully crafted rugs, pillows and wall art, and to our episode sponsor and seasoned partner, Design Assist. The staffing solution built specifically to support and scale interior design firm.
