7. Becoming the CEO Your Business Needs
What does it mean to be the CEO of your interior design business? This is more than just about what you do: it’s about who you’re being. I hear from so many designers that they’re being pulled in a million directions, just trying to keep up. You may see yourself as an unqualified leader, but I’m on a mission to help you step into your role as a confident, empowered CEO.
I want every interior designer to start seeing themselves as a CEO. Whether you’re in the early stages of contemplating getting support, like hiring design assistants, freelancers, and accountants, or if you have an established team but you’re finding delegating and setting expectations difficult, this episode is for you. You’re already a leader, but it’s time to reinvent the way that you lead.
Tune in this week to see why you’re more than a creative. You are a business owner, and the sooner you can start showing up as the CEO of your business, the sooner you can start creating the kind of results you want, whether that’s an income goal, working on specific types of projects, setting the schedule that you want, or anything else.
My signature program Out of Overwhelm is officially open for enrollment until December 17th 2022. I won’t be offering this program again until summer 2023, so if you’re a busy interior designer who wants to take the work we do on the podcast deeper, click here!
If you have any questions about Out of Overwhelm, you can join me for an Ask Me Anything Q&A the day after this podcast airs, December 8th 2022 at 11AM Central. I’ll be answering your queries and sharing the number one question you need to ask yourself before you delegate or hire, and so much more goodness. Click here to sign up!
To celebrate the launch of the show, I’m giving away gift cards to Jayson Home, one of my favorite home decor sources. All you have to do to become one of the five lucky listeners to win is follow, rate, and review this podcast.
Please leave your honest feedback, and click here to learn how to enter!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why so many designers feel like they’re just trying to keep their heads above water.
How you might be seeing yourself as an accidental or unqualified business owner.
Why your opinions of who you are and what you’re capable of are influencing how you show up every single day.
What it means to show up as the CEO of your interior design business.
How to discover the narrative driving your actions in your business and uncover your perceptions of being a CEO.
The two roles you can play in your business, and which one makes you the leader your business needs.
How to start identifying as a CEO, truly believing you are ready, capable, and empowered in making strategic, proactive decisions.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
Enter the podcast launch giveaway by leaving a rating and review! Click here to learn how to enter.
If you love what you’re learning on the show, I’d love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you’re listening to episode 7. This is the one where we’re talking all about being an interior design CEO. This isn’t just what you do in your business, it’s about who you’re being.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place. I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designers, welcome back to the podcast. This is a really exciting week because Out of Overwhelm has been officially opened for enrollment for a few days. It's open now through December 15th for those designers who want to join me in January 2023.
It's so incredible reading through the applications I receive and designers telling me what's going on for them, where they want to go. And knowing that Out of Overwhelm is the exact solution they've been looking for, I just love it. And I can't wait to work with these incredible designers in January.
If you're interested in joining us I'll have the link in the show notes so you can learn more about the modules, resources, community and, of course, all of the coaching you'll receive from me. I'm also hosting a free ask me anything Q&A tomorrow, December 8th, at 11am Central, where I'm going to be sharing the number one question you need to ask yourself before you delegate or hire.
Then I'm going to open it up for live coaching and you can ask me any of your questions. I'll also share more about Out of Overwhelm and you can ask me any questions about if it's a good fit, questions about how the program works. I'm not going to offer this program again until summer, so now is the time to get in.
Before we dive into what it means to be an interior design CEO, I want to give a shout out to one of the listeners who left me a review. Thank you so much. This listener called their review, “Mindset meets interior design,” which just makes me so happy because it's exactly what we do here.
They said, “Desi is such a breath of fresh air. Her calming voice makes all of the great advice she shares about how to simplify your interior design business seem even easier to implement and not at all intimidating. You'll sit there listening thinking, wait, it can really be that simple? Why the heck have I been making it more complicated?” I love that. Yes, it really can be that simple. And I'm sure I'm going to do an upcoming episode on using simplicity specifically throughout your business, so stay tuned for that.
And make sure you rate and review the podcast. I have a giveaway going on, I'm giving away five gift cards to Jayson Home for $50. This is only going on through December 21st, so make sure to get your review in. I'm giving away a bunch of cards, so you've got a great chance of winning. And let's face it, you're always shopping for clients, I want you to have an opportunity to shop for you.
All right let's get into this topic of being an interior design CEO. And the reason I wanted to do this episode and why I chose that name for my podcast is because I want more of you to start seeing yourself as CEOs. To tee us off a little bit I want to tell you, there's really two types of designers I work with on this topic.
The first being when you're in the early stages of considering getting support, or maybe you have support on a more minimal basis, either like a design assistant, outsourcing to freelancers, services that support you such as an accountant.
The other camp you might fall into is that you have team members established, but you aren't delegating effectively or you find it difficult to set expectations and hold people accountable. Maybe it's hard for you to release control or ask for what you really want. You're technically a leader, but you're ready to refine or reinvent the way that you lead.
What we're talking about today applies to both groups, no matter where you are on this spectrum. I hear from so many designers, whether they have no support or they have support, that they're being pulled in a million directions, that they're in the weeds and they're just trying to keep up.
Which, of course, makes me want to ask the question, where are you racing to and why do you believe you aren't in control of your speed and destination? Because you are the leader of your company and I see that in you. And yet you really are still seeing yourself as an accidental or unqualified business owner.
And that's what I want to shift today. I'm on a mission to help you step into your role as a confident, empowered CEO who creates amazing designs and provides an excellent customer experience. You are more than a creative, you are a business owner. And the sooner you start to view yourself that way, the better.
Not because the title of CEO specifically matters, but it's all about how you see yourself, how you talk about yourself, your opinion of who you are and what you're capable of. That directly impacts how you feel on a daily basis and your experience of your business. It also impacts the types of actions you take or don't take.
And then, of course, that impacts the results you're able to create, whether that's an income goal, working on certain types of projects, setting the schedule you want. Truly seeing yourself as CEO and embodying that self-concept impacts everything. What you're doing in your interior design business always needs to start with who you are being. And who you are being begins with what you believe about yourself as a business owner.
I absolutely coach my clients on the type of CEO activities to do in their business, such as managing their time and finances, establishing processes, learning to clearly communicate with clients and team members. But those actions are far easier to do and more effective when you believe you are the type of person who can do them, that you're capable of them, or that you can learn to do them.
I want you to first understand that there are two key roles you play in your business so we're starting with the same baseline understanding. I define these roles as the CEO and the worker bee.
The CEO is really responsible for the vision of the company, how the business makes money and attracts new clients, and the overall success or failure of the company long-term. The CEO is who employs the worker bee.
The worker bee I define really as being that person who is responsible for the technical side of the business, such as creating drawings, tracking orders, coordinating trades, scheduling appointments.
Both of these roles are important, projects have to get done. But without the CEO, the worker bee has little job security, often poor working conditions, and might be a little bit of a resentful employee. You see where I'm going with this? Get honest with yourself about where you're spending your time and why.
It can feel a lot easier to bury yourself in a to-do list doing that worker bee mode, rather than make strategic and proactive decisions about the future of your company. And the key shift I want for you in this episode is start to identify yourself as a CEO, that you are ready and capable and empowered to make those strategic and proactive decisions.
When I talk about identity, identity is simply a collection of thoughts about who you are, how you perceive yourself, and how you think others perceive you. These beliefs or sentences in your brain become an internal narrative that are the fuel driving what you do or don't do, which of course leads to your reality, your current results.
So get really curious about what collection of beliefs you have on repeat about what's possible for you and your business, what you're good at, what you're bad at, and your ability or inability to create the results you truly want. Working on identity is something that you will continue to revisit throughout the lifetime of your business.
And this is because as you grow your business, you have to grow you. You have to expand what you think is possible for you. The way you perceive yourself right now in this moment is what has created your current results. So if you want to create new results, whether that's hiring new team members, making more money, getting national press, this is going to require you to step into the next version of how you identify as a CEO.
The very first thing you can do to get started with this work in becoming an interior design CEO is to know what your current thought patterns are. This is one of the first things you always learn as a client of mine, is the step of awareness.
The majority of your thoughts are completely unconscious. But just because they're unconscious doesn't mean that they aren't driving the bus. And that's so much of what coaching is, is bringing these unconscious thought patterns to light so you can see how they impact the results you have and decide how you want to move forward.
When I talk about awareness, I want to talk about it from a more global view and then a more specific individual view. So what I want you to first consider is what comes to mind when you think about the word CEO? Does the word have an overall positive or negative connotation? Does the word make you uncomfortable? And why? Do you think CEOs need to act a certain way, treat people a certain way, have a certain level of intelligence? Just get curious, what is your perception of a CEO?
What was interesting was I was recently coaching a client, who they actually have quite a large team. And what we discovered was they were making decisions in their business based on a previous firm they worked at and a boss who made decisions in a way they did not like.
And what was so fascinating was their decision making or their leading as a CEO for their team was coming from a reactionary place to who they didn't want to be, based on their thoughts about what a leader is supposed to be like or what they have to be like. So we want to take a look at these thoughts.
Here's a prompt that you could even explore. When I think about CEOs, I picture... Or CEOs are... You could do this now and just pause or you could spend some time writing it out. And then ask yourself, what do you think of that definition? Is your definition of a CEO something you want to be? And if it's not, I want you to consider broadening your perspective and creating your own definition of what it means to be CEO.
Once you take a look at that definition of CEO from a more global view, I want you to zoom it in and look at a more individual perspective. What are you telling yourself about your abilities as a business owner and leader?
These are some of the common beliefs I hear from clients, I don't know enough. I don't have enough experience. I don't have the right training. I don't have the time, money, energy to train someone. I have to do it myself if I want it done right. I'm bad at this money stuff. I don't know how to manage people. I just fell into having a business.
Now, when I hear these from clients, they report them like they’re reporting the news. But these are just well practiced beliefs and they've spent more time telling themselves this than beliefs that are setting them up to be an empowered CEO.
Begin to question your beliefs that your brain is offering up because they are optional. They're just sentences you've thought so many times that you have now just taken them for the truth. And they might not have even been sentences that originated from you. They could be someone else's belief system you've adopted.
I want you to consider this, even if you could prove these beliefs true, for example, think about this belief, “I don't have enough experience.” Let's say maybe there is a specific skill you need to learn about managing your finances. When you put out this blanket belief, “I don't have enough experience,” I want you to think about how you feel when you say those things to yourself.
When you tell yourself, “I don't have enough experience, I don't have enough training,” you feel pretty awful. And then that impacts how you show up in your business. So whatever you're telling yourself about how you show up or what your capabilities are, question who would you get to be without those beliefs? What would be possible for you if you let that identity go?
These habitual sentences you have on repeat about yourself are truly just a story, and I want you to know that you get to be the author of your story. Decide what you want to believe on purpose and start looking for evidence of how those beliefs are already true.
This could be that you do know what you want the future of your company to look like. You do know what you want your fees to be in order to hit those financial goals. And it could be something so simple, yet so profound as believing that you're someone who's committed to figuring it out, it being whatever challenges you're presented with as you grow your business.
And this isn't to say that there aren't going to be skill sets you want to acquire, trainings you'll want to take, and a bunch of learning through trial and error. But when you focus on what you do know, where you have made progress, and how you're moving in the direction of where you want to go, you're more likely to keep going, to problem solve at a higher level and actually enjoy the process.
When you begin to identify with being the leader of your business or even stepping into that version 2.0 of being a CEO you're going to feel empowered and confident. You're going to be willing to set bigger goals, honor commitments to yourself, present higher fees, and be the leader in the relationship with your clients, your team, and your contractors. Not to mention, this work has a ripple effect into every area of your life where you want to show yourself what's possible.
The one thing I want you to hear loud and clear today is to start with who you are being as a CEO, not what you are doing. The being leads to doing and the results will follow. As you go throughout your day, begin to notice what you're telling yourself about you. Decide if you want to keep that story or if it's time to write a new one.
That's what I've got for you today. In the next episode I'm going to be sharing a specific skill you're going to need to learn to leverage as the CEO of your interior design business. I can't wait to dive into that topic. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week. I'll talk to you in the next episode.
To celebrate the launch of the show, I'm going to be giving away gift cards to Jayson Home, one of my favorite home decor sources. I'm going to be giving away $50 gift cards to five lucky listeners who follow, rate, and review the show.
Now, it doesn't have to be a five star review, although I sure hope you love the show. I want your honest feedback so I can create an amazing show that provides tons of value. Visit desicreswell.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. I'll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you're ready to take what you've learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place. I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designers, welcome back to the podcast. This is a really exciting week because Out of Overwhelm has been officially opened for enrollment for a few days. It's open now through December 15th for those designers who want to join me in January 2023.
It's so incredible reading through the applications I receive and designers telling me what's going on for them, where they want to go. And knowing that Out of Overwhelm is the exact solution they've been looking for, I just love it. And I can't wait to work with these incredible designers in January.
If you're interested in joining us I'll have the link in the show notes so you can learn more about the modules, resources, community and, of course, all of the coaching you'll receive from me. I'm also hosting a free ask me anything Q&A tomorrow, December 8th, at 11am Central, where I'm going to be sharing the number one question you need to ask yourself before you delegate or hire.
Then I'm going to open it up for live coaching and you can ask me any of your questions. I'll also share more about Out of Overwhelm and you can ask me any questions about if it's a good fit, questions about how the program works. I'm not going to offer this program again until summer, so now is the time to get in.
Before we dive into what it means to be an interior design CEO, I want to give a shout out to one of the listeners who left me a review. Thank you so much. This listener called their review, “Mindset meets interior design,” which just makes me so happy because it's exactly what we do here.
They said, “Desi is such a breath of fresh air. Her calming voice makes all of the great advice she shares about how to simplify your interior design business seem even easier to implement and not at all intimidating. You'll sit there listening thinking, wait, it can really be that simple? Why the heck have I been making it more complicated?” I love that. Yes, it really can be that simple. And I'm sure I'm going to do an upcoming episode on using simplicity specifically throughout your business, so stay tuned for that.
And make sure you rate and review the podcast. I have a giveaway going on, I'm giving away five gift cards to Jayson Home for $50. This is only going on through December 21st, so make sure to get your review in. I'm giving away a bunch of cards, so you've got a great chance of winning. And let's face it, you're always shopping for clients, I want you to have an opportunity to shop for you.
All right let's get into this topic of being an interior design CEO. And the reason I wanted to do this episode and why I chose that name for my podcast is because I want more of you to start seeing yourself as CEOs. To tee us off a little bit I want to tell you, there's really two types of designers I work with on this topic.
The first being when you're in the early stages of considering getting support, or maybe you have support on a more minimal basis, either like a design assistant, outsourcing to freelancers, services that support you such as an accountant.
The other camp you might fall into is that you have team members established, but you aren't delegating effectively or you find it difficult to set expectations and hold people accountable. Maybe it's hard for you to release control or ask for what you really want. You're technically a leader, but you're ready to refine or reinvent the way that you lead.
What we're talking about today applies to both groups, no matter where you are on this spectrum. I hear from so many designers, whether they have no support or they have support, that they're being pulled in a million directions, that they're in the weeds and they're just trying to keep up.
Which, of course, makes me want to ask the question, where are you racing to and why do you believe you aren't in control of your speed and destination? Because you are the leader of your company and I see that in you. And yet you really are still seeing yourself as an accidental or unqualified business owner.
And that's what I want to shift today. I'm on a mission to help you step into your role as a confident, empowered CEO who creates amazing designs and provides an excellent customer experience. You are more than a creative, you are a business owner. And the sooner you start to view yourself that way, the better.
Not because the title of CEO specifically matters, but it's all about how you see yourself, how you talk about yourself, your opinion of who you are and what you're capable of. That directly impacts how you feel on a daily basis and your experience of your business. It also impacts the types of actions you take or don't take.
And then, of course, that impacts the results you're able to create, whether that's an income goal, working on certain types of projects, setting the schedule you want. Truly seeing yourself as CEO and embodying that self-concept impacts everything. What you're doing in your interior design business always needs to start with who you are being. And who you are being begins with what you believe about yourself as a business owner.
I absolutely coach my clients on the type of CEO activities to do in their business, such as managing their time and finances, establishing processes, learning to clearly communicate with clients and team members. But those actions are far easier to do and more effective when you believe you are the type of person who can do them, that you're capable of them, or that you can learn to do them.
I want you to first understand that there are two key roles you play in your business so we're starting with the same baseline understanding. I define these roles as the CEO and the worker bee.
The CEO is really responsible for the vision of the company, how the business makes money and attracts new clients, and the overall success or failure of the company long-term. The CEO is who employs the worker bee.
The worker bee I define really as being that person who is responsible for the technical side of the business, such as creating drawings, tracking orders, coordinating trades, scheduling appointments.
Both of these roles are important, projects have to get done. But without the CEO, the worker bee has little job security, often poor working conditions, and might be a little bit of a resentful employee. You see where I'm going with this? Get honest with yourself about where you're spending your time and why.
It can feel a lot easier to bury yourself in a to-do list doing that worker bee mode, rather than make strategic and proactive decisions about the future of your company. And the key shift I want for you in this episode is start to identify yourself as a CEO, that you are ready and capable and empowered to make those strategic and proactive decisions.
When I talk about identity, identity is simply a collection of thoughts about who you are, how you perceive yourself, and how you think others perceive you. These beliefs or sentences in your brain become an internal narrative that are the fuel driving what you do or don't do, which of course leads to your reality, your current results.
So get really curious about what collection of beliefs you have on repeat about what's possible for you and your business, what you're good at, what you're bad at, and your ability or inability to create the results you truly want. Working on identity is something that you will continue to revisit throughout the lifetime of your business.
And this is because as you grow your business, you have to grow you. You have to expand what you think is possible for you. The way you perceive yourself right now in this moment is what has created your current results. So if you want to create new results, whether that's hiring new team members, making more money, getting national press, this is going to require you to step into the next version of how you identify as a CEO.
The very first thing you can do to get started with this work in becoming an interior design CEO is to know what your current thought patterns are. This is one of the first things you always learn as a client of mine, is the step of awareness.
The majority of your thoughts are completely unconscious. But just because they're unconscious doesn't mean that they aren't driving the bus. And that's so much of what coaching is, is bringing these unconscious thought patterns to light so you can see how they impact the results you have and decide how you want to move forward.
When I talk about awareness, I want to talk about it from a more global view and then a more specific individual view. So what I want you to first consider is what comes to mind when you think about the word CEO? Does the word have an overall positive or negative connotation? Does the word make you uncomfortable? And why? Do you think CEOs need to act a certain way, treat people a certain way, have a certain level of intelligence? Just get curious, what is your perception of a CEO?
What was interesting was I was recently coaching a client, who they actually have quite a large team. And what we discovered was they were making decisions in their business based on a previous firm they worked at and a boss who made decisions in a way they did not like.
And what was so fascinating was their decision making or their leading as a CEO for their team was coming from a reactionary place to who they didn't want to be, based on their thoughts about what a leader is supposed to be like or what they have to be like. So we want to take a look at these thoughts.
Here's a prompt that you could even explore. When I think about CEOs, I picture... Or CEOs are... You could do this now and just pause or you could spend some time writing it out. And then ask yourself, what do you think of that definition? Is your definition of a CEO something you want to be? And if it's not, I want you to consider broadening your perspective and creating your own definition of what it means to be CEO.
Once you take a look at that definition of CEO from a more global view, I want you to zoom it in and look at a more individual perspective. What are you telling yourself about your abilities as a business owner and leader?
These are some of the common beliefs I hear from clients, I don't know enough. I don't have enough experience. I don't have the right training. I don't have the time, money, energy to train someone. I have to do it myself if I want it done right. I'm bad at this money stuff. I don't know how to manage people. I just fell into having a business.
Now, when I hear these from clients, they report them like they’re reporting the news. But these are just well practiced beliefs and they've spent more time telling themselves this than beliefs that are setting them up to be an empowered CEO.
Begin to question your beliefs that your brain is offering up because they are optional. They're just sentences you've thought so many times that you have now just taken them for the truth. And they might not have even been sentences that originated from you. They could be someone else's belief system you've adopted.
I want you to consider this, even if you could prove these beliefs true, for example, think about this belief, “I don't have enough experience.” Let's say maybe there is a specific skill you need to learn about managing your finances. When you put out this blanket belief, “I don't have enough experience,” I want you to think about how you feel when you say those things to yourself.
When you tell yourself, “I don't have enough experience, I don't have enough training,” you feel pretty awful. And then that impacts how you show up in your business. So whatever you're telling yourself about how you show up or what your capabilities are, question who would you get to be without those beliefs? What would be possible for you if you let that identity go?
These habitual sentences you have on repeat about yourself are truly just a story, and I want you to know that you get to be the author of your story. Decide what you want to believe on purpose and start looking for evidence of how those beliefs are already true.
This could be that you do know what you want the future of your company to look like. You do know what you want your fees to be in order to hit those financial goals. And it could be something so simple, yet so profound as believing that you're someone who's committed to figuring it out, it being whatever challenges you're presented with as you grow your business.
And this isn't to say that there aren't going to be skill sets you want to acquire, trainings you'll want to take, and a bunch of learning through trial and error. But when you focus on what you do know, where you have made progress, and how you're moving in the direction of where you want to go, you're more likely to keep going, to problem solve at a higher level and actually enjoy the process.
When you begin to identify with being the leader of your business or even stepping into that version 2.0 of being a CEO you're going to feel empowered and confident. You're going to be willing to set bigger goals, honor commitments to yourself, present higher fees, and be the leader in the relationship with your clients, your team, and your contractors. Not to mention, this work has a ripple effect into every area of your life where you want to show yourself what's possible.
The one thing I want you to hear loud and clear today is to start with who you are being as a CEO, not what you are doing. The being leads to doing and the results will follow. As you go throughout your day, begin to notice what you're telling yourself about you. Decide if you want to keep that story or if it's time to write a new one.
That's what I've got for you today. In the next episode I'm going to be sharing a specific skill you're going to need to learn to leverage as the CEO of your interior design business. I can't wait to dive into that topic. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week. I'll talk to you in the next episode.
To celebrate the launch of the show, I'm going to be giving away gift cards to Jayson Home, one of my favorite home decor sources. I'm going to be giving away $50 gift cards to five lucky listeners who follow, rate, and review the show.
Now, it doesn't have to be a five star review, although I sure hope you love the show. I want your honest feedback so I can create an amazing show that provides tons of value. Visit desicreswell.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. I'll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you're ready to take what you've learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
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