125. Prepare Your Business for Summer Now
Do you have a desire to work less during the summer months? Does the notion of taking some (or a lot) of time off also stir up mental drama for you?
If the thought of a break brings up a ton of fears and worries, it’s time to start planning now to ensure your interior design business is set up for success during those sweet summer months. Whether you want to take extended time off, work a reduced schedule, or simply navigate the changes in rhythm that summer brings, it's important to be intentional about your approach.
Join me in this episode as I share the 10 key things you need to do now to prepare your business for the summer season. From mapping out project timelines to reviewing your finances, we'll cover all the bases so you can create a summer experience that supports both your business goals and your personal desires. Don’t compromise on what you truly want because you didn’t plan for it early enough, designer.
If you're interested in working together one-on-one in the fall or winter, now is the time to put your name on the waitlist for private coaching. Click here to secure your spot!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
How to tap into possibility as you create an inspiring vision for your ideal summer business.
Why it's crucial to decide your working hours and get everyone's vacation dates on the calendar now.
The importance of mapping out project timelines and communicating expectations to clients and team members.
How to determine what needs to be done before summer and what you'll do to support your business during the summer months.
Why reviewing your finances is essential when planning for a reduced workload or time off.
How creating a fall re-entry plan can help you transition back to work with ease and intention.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you love what you’re learning on the show, and want to learn how I can support you, click here to learn more about coaching.
Click here for the latest workshops and free resources.
Follow me on Instagram!
Sign up to my Monday Mindset email list to get bite-sized insights on topics that you can use to set your week up for success!
Get my free Life & Business Vision Journal!
Check out my CEO Summer School series!
Click here to grab Kirstin Brender’s free download for tracking your project deadlines!
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you're listening to episode 125. In this one, I'm gonna be sharing the 10 things you need to get started on now to prepare your business for summer as an interior design business owner so that you can create the seasonal experience you want for yourself while also supporting your business and your goals. It might sound early, I know we're in spring, but this is really the time to start making decisions and planning for those sweet, sweet summer months.
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, designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are having an incredible week. I'm sitting down at my desk to record this for you. I just got done with some meditation and self-coaching, both of which are things that I've really recommitted myself to over the last few months and making it a daily practice.
My self-coaching can kind of ebb and flow and I've really been leaning into doing it daily. Whether or not I feel like something's really coming up for me or there's something really specific I'm working through. Often what I find is that there is some sort of low-level hum of something that is in the background and actually really useful for me to work through.
And in the past when I've done it daily, it's always so, so impactful. And I'm always so glad that I do it and give myself a moment to touch base with myself and check in. And I'm so glad to be back to making that a routine for myself. And of course, today's topic definitely relates to some of the self-coaching that I've been doing. And what we're going to be talking about is preparing your business for the summer months, whatever the summer months will look like for you.
I've mentioned a little bit on the podcast that I have this desire to take the summer completely off. Last year, I did a summer slowdown. And if you wanna hear about that, you can go back to listen to episode 80. But this year, I'm kind of thinking about what if I just took the entire summer off? And let me tell you, this has really stirred the mental drama pot for me. It has brought up a lot of interesting things, a lot of worries, a lot of fears, a lot of obstacles that some of them are tangible, yes, real things as a business owner, I need to work through.
And also some of them are obstacles that are just brought up by my brain because it's coming from fear. It's just me wanting to get in my own way of what I want to give myself. And so it's been so helpful to have this consistent self-coaching practice where I'm really diving into this. Of course, there's the days where I'm like, there's something super specific I'm working on, but also just what is that background noise that is continuing to bubble up that I need to sort through.
And I thought, you know, summer's really been on my mind and planning for summer. And I thought, you know, summer might be on your mind as well. And if it isn't necessarily on your mind, I want it to be brought to the forefront, because it's really important to start planning for changes in season and changes in rhythm in advance.
The majority of the things that you do as a business owner, whether it is delivering projects to a client or doing something on your back end, it takes some time. It takes runway to create those changes. And like I said, some of the things I've been working through are some of the logistics, including what would it mean for the podcast to have me off and what that means in terms of the content and value that I have been consistently putting out for all of you.
Last summer, I ran a special series called CEO Summer School. And I know so many of you decided to join me for that and absolutely loved it. I wanted to make sure you are aware if you did not participate the first time or weren't a listener at that point and missed it, you can absolutely still go through that series. It's applicable really any time of year and has some really great episodes that pair with individual lessons that you get sent straight to your inbox. So if you do wanna participate in that still, you can go to desiid.com/summer-school and sign up and you can just follow along on your own time.
But back to what I was saying is, it's time to make some decisions and make some plans now. And I don't know about you, but even over our winter break, I was starting to get things about summer camp. And then right in January, it was time to be like, you need to plan out your kids’ entire summer. And I definitely have done that I've got the dust settled on the whole summer camp situation.
And if you're a parent, you probably were thrust into that to some extent yourself. So this episode is really a reminder to yes, we've got all of that. Like if we are caregivers, got to figure out everybody else, but don't forget about you and your business. Don't forget about what you need and want for the summer season.
Maybe you, like me, are thinking about taking a larger chunk of time off, or maybe you have a desire to work less, and that might mean summer Fridays, or travel a bit more over the summer where you've got several periods of weeks off, or long weekends, whatever it is, wherever you fall on that spectrum, now's the time to set your intention for the summer and how you want it to look and feel and start putting in place the pieces that need to happen to make that plan possible for you.
Often what I see with my interior design business owners is that they're so stuck in the day-to-day management that they don't give themselves enough of a runway to appropriately plan for their summer schedule. And then once it gets kind of actually close to summer, and they start thinking about it, and they go, oh, that'd be really nice if I could do x, y, or z, it becomes a real crunch, or they're just pulled in too many directions and they feel like they really have to compromise on what they want because they didn't define it early enough.
Sometimes what happens is they'll go, well, I'll just do it next year, but I don't want that to happen for you. Let's set the stage early and be planful in how you approach this so that it can actually happen. What I want to do with today's episode is give you the 10 things you need to think about and need to do now and get started on to prepare your interior design business for a summer break or a summer schedule.
This will be applicable wherever you are on your desires for taking time off, scaling back, navigating inconsistent schedules with your kids, your team members, all of those things, because of course, other people will impact how this goes for you. So you want to be able to look ahead and see how those things are going to influence your schedule, your availability, capacity, all those things.
And as I was putting this episode together, I'll just make this side note, this could absolutely apply if you are wanting to take any kind of extended leave from the business or take additional time off, whether that is for maternity leave, health leave of some sort, or potentially wanting to care for someone in your family who needs additional support. So this will all be applicable to that as well.
Alright, so let's dive in. The very first thing that you need to do to prepare your business for summer is to start with your vision and tap into possibility. This is your place to dream up what would your ideal summer business look like and get yourself to start thinking about not just why you couldn't do it, because that might be your brain's initial response, is, oh yeah, that sounds nice, but not for me. And start thinking about how could it be possible to have what I want.
Now, whenever I start to think about ideal life and business vision, which is something I do with my private clients, or even just thinking about what do I want these three months of summer to look like? Always give yourself permission to think big and worry about the how later, right? Because if we get too bogged down in how it's gonna work and the logistics right off the bat, we start to shrink our vision and what we want becomes this like tiny little shriveled pod of what it is we actually want.
So give yourself the ability to open the door wide open to what it is you want. And then we can figure out the logistics as we go. But you want to know where is it that I actually want to head so that we can then start to think about what is possible and how you could create that.
Once you're clear on what it is that you want the summer business to look like, then you can get into the logistics. And that's what a lot of these other pieces are going to be.
So the second thing that you need to do is decide your working hours. Now, I always suggest you have your working hours solidified and that's not to say that, you know, Like there won't ever be some end flow to it, but have a container within which you work. Otherwise the work bleeds everywhere. And if you need more support with that, definitely check out episode 26. That episode is called what office hours. That'll give you some extra help around that.
So you want to know when you're working. And you know, I know firsthand how inconsistent the summer schedule can be, especially if you're like piecing together camps. And I don't know, like my kids, well, now one of my kids, her summer swim schedule, their practice is from 9:45 to 11 in the morning, which is just really optimal, isn't it?
So there may be a very consistent cadence to your working hours, there may not, but we need to decide what they are. Maybe they are, you know, for a period of time, this is what they look like for a couple of weeks, and then another couple of weeks, they look a different way, whatever it is, we got to decide. Otherwise, like I said, it'll be all over the place. You'll feel like you're always working and never off. So give yourself a container, do yourself that favor.
The next thing you want to do schedule wise, is get everyone's vacation on the calendar. So everyone being if you have a team or contractors that you rely on heavily in the business, and also your vacation dates. So vacation dates could be if you're taking every Friday off during the summer, that could be a vacation date, it could be blocks of time where you're gone for a week.
Whenever you're gonna be taking time off, make sure it's noted. And I always love to give some time that is blocked off from meetings or any obligations before and after leaving. I call that runway. It helps you wrap things up and ease into the time off and then also gives you some time to integrate back into the real world and get yourself settled.
Some of my clients love to have the office closed for the entire team for a specific period of time, whether it's over the holidays or the summer. It might be that you're going to be out of the office, but you still have team in the office. Maybe it's a contractor or builder that you're heavily involved with a project and they're taking time off, whatever it is, just think through who am I engaged with on a regular basis? And if they were not physically present or actively working on something that relates to me, would that impact me? And we need to know that and get it documented so that we're aware of how that's going to impact number four.
Number four is to map out your project timelines and deadlines. This is a great practice in general. And I know a lot of designers have different ways of doing this. Some of my clients love to have a big whiteboard in their office. You can absolutely do that. Some use like sticky notes and move that around. I love a good spreadsheet. Actually I don't really love spreadsheets that much but visually I like a spreadsheet.
It's one of the ways that I keep track of my client capacity and I want to give you this really incredible free download that you can use if you're interested in having a visual way to track your project timelines and your capacity. A colleague of mine, Kirsten Brenders, she is an online business manager and she has extensive experience running large scale projects in commercial interior design firms. And she started her own business and now works with both commercial and residential businesses.
And at some point, we were talking about project tracking. And she shared this spreadsheet with me. That's just incredible that she's put together for her clients. And I asked her for this episode, specifically if she would turn it into a free download. And she said yes. So if you don't have a way that you're tracking your project deadlines, definitely download this ASAP.
I'm going to give you the link right now, but also it'll be in the show notes. So it's kirstinbrenders.myflodesk.com/timeline. You can go check it out. It's all color coded. She's got little icons for when you're gonna be out of the office. And this of course could mark other people out of the office too, marking out project milestones. I mean, it's just, it's a really awesome spreadsheet and it's free. So go grab it and then you can update it with everything that I'm telling you to think through.
So make sure just everything is on there. Even those things you think won't take very long. There's always those things. Don't let those little floaty things stay off. We need to know where everything is. Because then you can take a look at that spreadsheet or however you track it and look at do I need to make any adjustments? Do I need to spread out the meetings in a different way?
Do I need to even just move the next meeting date so it's not the day after I arrive back from vacation and I'm still trying to get in the groove of things? Do you need to get certain things done and get some additional support on board in order to get things done before you're headed out? Right? We'll talk about that a little bit more in a bit.
But just make sure everything is on however you want to track your project timelines and deadlines so that you can see how do those project milestones, kickoffs, wrap-ups, installs, all of that, how do they align with what I want my summer schedule to be? And if it looks like they're not aligning, then you can decide what you wanna do about it.
Number five is that you need to communicate with anyone who's impacted by scheduling changes or shifts so that you can inform them of what's happening and set expectations. As I said before, that might be shifting around some timelines. It might be just letting people know when you're gonna be out of the office so that you can address any of their needs or concerns or deliverables before you leave. So you can be off when you're off.
It could be saying, I'm going to be out and so you should reach out to this person. You can think through what out of office reminders you need to have on at this point. The main thing is that you are letting everyone know what they need to know, based on the things that you've already decided, and make sure expectations are clear, and letting you know, especially your clients know that you are absolutely there for them and want to support them and have everything under control. And this is the plan. And this is when you'll be gone. And for sure, you'll take care of them when you return.
Of course, this is going to help with the client experience because client experience is always elevated when there's very clear expectations that you follow through on. And it's also gonna really help you because if you set expectations, that means you've made clear decisions on what you're doing and not doing and when you're doing it and how you're doing it, right? Because in order to set the expectation, you have to have had that internal conversation with yourself first.
So this will give you a better experience during the summer as well, as your clients being cared for while also honoring the schedule you wanna have. The sixth thing you can do to prepare your interior design business for summer is determine what needs to be done for projects before the summer schedule happens, especially if there is a significant difference from business as usual, or you're going to be out more and the team is still moving things along, and you're not going to be accessible to them.
This could also be if there's deadlines that would be impacted by a team member being out for a period of time, whether that's a few days a week, or longer. I was just coaching one of my private clients on this actually, and it's a key team member who's going to be out on maternity leave over the summer. So this is something that we're needing to think about now.
Number six is really all about getting your arms around what is the workload, what are the deliverables, and what are the milestones and deadlines we need to have in order to make the summer schedule happen. We've been talking a lot on this episode about what you want the summer to look and feel like for you. This is also where I'm going to encourage you to think about how you want the lead up to summer to be like.
Sometimes when we're wanting to take some more time off than we typically do, our brain can get a little fired up and switch into a mindset of wanting to work from the place of earning a break, or this belief that we have to pay for the break, either on the front or back end or both. So just be aware if that's coming up for you. And that is definitely something that could be useful for some coaching around.
Number seven is decide what you'll do to support the business during the summer months. This is all about your backend business development. This is upgrades you're making to the business, whether that is systems, maybe it's a website project, maybe it is marketing, maybe it is team development.
I'm not saying you have to do these things or have to do a ton of them, but you do want to decide what am I doing to support the function and health of the business during the summer months if you're still going to be actively engaged with it. If you're still going to be actively engaged and you're not like completely taking time off. And of course, adjusting what you're committing to in the business based on your capacity. So you know, you've heard me talk about quarterly planning a lot.
And I've got lots of episodes on that if you just scroll back in the feed, but I always suggest no more than three internal projects per quarter. And so if you are planning to take a lot of time off, maybe you have one internal project, or maybe you have two, or maybe you have none, right? It's hard to say, just speaking from a blanket sense with this podcast. And of course, when we work together one on one, I'm able to give you that really personalized feedback. So just take this through your own discernment of what is realistic for me to do during the summer.
Of course, this keeps you really focused on moving the business forward based on what your capacity is. And it's also really helpful for when your brain wants to tell you that you're taking too much time off, that you're not doing enough, you should be doing more, yada, yada, yada. Make a decision about what you're doing and equally important, what you're not doing and own it.
Number eight is to determine what support you need in the business. If you wanna work less, but you're not in a position really to change the workload, maybe you need to bring in some additional seasonal support. Or maybe you have a team member who has some flexibility and can up their level of involvement in the business.
Maybe you find someone who, on a temporary basis, is really in charge of sample organization or returning samples, or it's an intern who's gonna help with a lot of the admin work. Whatever it is, you wanna think through who and what is going to help me create the summer that I want while also delivering in my business the way that I want to.
I also encourage you to think about what support you need personally, because when you get support for your personal life, that absolutely is still in support of your business. Maybe there are certain days where you want to jump into the day early so that you can end early. And maybe that means you need to arrange for transportation for your kids. This could look a lot of different ways and you can get very creative with it, but make sure that you are supported.
Number nine is to review your finances. If you're reducing your workload, you want to make sure the math works. When I say that the math works, it means hitting whatever goals that you want or need to hit.
When you go to the numbers, it might not look the way you want it to. That's okay. Knowing what you're working with is always the first step. Just because at first glance, the numbers aren't where you want them to be or need them to be, that's not a problem. You see where you're at, and then you get to work exploring possibilities and all the ways you could create solutions.
This could be a great time to think about the types of services that you're offering or who is the lead on a project. You could think about offering less all-in services like consultations or designer for a day or leaning into furniture only projects, things that are bringing money into the business, but give you more flexibility and leverage over your schedule during months when flexibility can be especially desirable.
You could be marketing projects that maybe you have a lead designer and it wouldn't be something you'd necessarily take on, but they could definitely handle. And so you could be billing them out. Again, you can get creative here.
And I'll say, if you are gonna pivot your services in any way for a summer season, make sure you're building that into your marketing plan now so that potential clients have time to become aware of the service and warm up to the service idea and plan for it. And of course, you'll want to let the people who typically refer to you know that there's this new opportunity or new way of working with you as well so that they can help you spread the word.
The 10th and final thing that I want you to do as you get ready for a summer schedule is to create a fall re-entry plan. This definitely will include deciding how you will handle inquiries that come in over the summer months, and also how you will handle your beautiful business brain popping up ideas that you want to implement over the summer months. But you've committed to doing other things already. So we need to figure out where those are going to sit on a nice pretty shelf.
This fall re-entry plan is so helpful from a planning perspective. Fall is often very busy for many of the clients that I work with, they are parents and so fall can be especially bustling with the start of school. Business tends to pick up again because clients are done with their vacations and they're thinking about their homes, getting ready for the holidays.
So when you have a fall re-entry plan, it's a soft way to ease into things instead of being flung back into your more typical schedule. And you've already decided what that plan is. So you don't have to worry about it. It's set it and forget it. Which brings me to how this is also helpful from a mindset perspective in that it gives your brain a place to rest.
I brought this up before, but if you're taking time off, maybe you're at the lake, you're on vacation, you're just enjoying a Friday of fun and exploring your city because it's beautiful weather and everyone's out of the woodwork. At least that's how it is in Minnesota here. You might start to worry or feel anxious telling yourself you should be doing more or that it's not okay that you're taking this time off or maybe you shouldn't do it. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just do a little bit more even though you said you weren't going to.
When this happens, you can gently remind yourself that you actually have a good solid plan that you've already worked through and that you can tell your brain, just chill out. You've made lots of intentional choices. You've thought it through, and it's okay to be taking this time for yourself.
It really is so useful, and I don't like to talk about it this way necessarily, but I know a lot of people think about it this way, but it is productive to take time off. You come back re-energized, refreshed, rejuvenated, distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?
Sometimes a little bit of separation from your business can go a long way into tuning back into why you love what you do, right? It's a good idea, but our brain forgets. And so you need to remind yourself that it's wonderful that you are having your summer schedule and having some fun.
All right, those are the 10 things. I'll give you a quick recap. And if you wanna have a way to go step-by-step through this, all of the transcripts for every single episode of the podcast are on the website. So if you go to desicreswell.com, click on the podcast tab, that is where you can find every single episode and the full transcript. So you could go through and just even copy and paste these steps and then work through them very systematically.
The 10 steps to get your interior design business ready for summer are:
One, start with vision and tap into possibility . Two, decide your working hours. Three, get everyone's vacation and out of office dates on the calendar, including yours. Number four, map out your project timelines and deadlines. And this is where you're going to go download that fantastic spreadsheet from Kirsten in the show notes. Number five, communicate with the appropriate parties to inform and set expectations.
Number six, determine what needs to be done for projects before the summer schedules or things that are impacted with time off or varying schedule cadences. Number seven, decide what you'll do to support the business during the summer months. Number eight, determine what support you need in the business. Number nine, review your finances. And number 10, create a fall re-entry plan.
When you do these 10 things, you are really setting your business up for success and supporting yourself as the business owner in having both the business and the life that you want in that season. When you plan in advance and with this level of intentionality, you really can make it happen.
I'd love to hear what you're envisioning for yourself this summer. You can send me a message on Instagram @DesiCreswell, or send me an email, desi@desiid.com. Or if you're on my email list, you just reply back.
Also before we sign off, two quick reminders. If you are interested in working with me one on one, head over to desicreswell.com/coaching. And that's where you can learn all about Design to Thrive private coaching partnerships, which are completely customized to you and supporting you as the interior design business owner. That's where you can get on the waitlist, which is how you get first dibs on those spots when they become available.
And then the second reminder is to rate, review, and share the podcast. Those are three great ways that you can help support the show. And if you get value out of what I'm sharing and love hearing these every week, I would so appreciate it if you would take the time, it really only takes a minute, to either rate, review, or share your favorite episode with a designer friend so that you can help me spread the word.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode, and until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week.
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 where you'll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you're hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I'll talk to you next week.
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, designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are having an incredible week. I'm sitting down at my desk to record this for you. I just got done with some meditation and self-coaching, both of which are things that I've really recommitted myself to over the last few months and making it a daily practice.
My self-coaching can kind of ebb and flow and I've really been leaning into doing it daily. Whether or not I feel like something's really coming up for me or there's something really specific I'm working through. Often what I find is that there is some sort of low-level hum of something that is in the background and actually really useful for me to work through.
And in the past when I've done it daily, it's always so, so impactful. And I'm always so glad that I do it and give myself a moment to touch base with myself and check in. And I'm so glad to be back to making that a routine for myself. And of course, today's topic definitely relates to some of the self-coaching that I've been doing. And what we're going to be talking about is preparing your business for the summer months, whatever the summer months will look like for you.
I've mentioned a little bit on the podcast that I have this desire to take the summer completely off. Last year, I did a summer slowdown. And if you wanna hear about that, you can go back to listen to episode 80. But this year, I'm kind of thinking about what if I just took the entire summer off? And let me tell you, this has really stirred the mental drama pot for me. It has brought up a lot of interesting things, a lot of worries, a lot of fears, a lot of obstacles that some of them are tangible, yes, real things as a business owner, I need to work through.
And also some of them are obstacles that are just brought up by my brain because it's coming from fear. It's just me wanting to get in my own way of what I want to give myself. And so it's been so helpful to have this consistent self-coaching practice where I'm really diving into this. Of course, there's the days where I'm like, there's something super specific I'm working on, but also just what is that background noise that is continuing to bubble up that I need to sort through.
And I thought, you know, summer's really been on my mind and planning for summer. And I thought, you know, summer might be on your mind as well. And if it isn't necessarily on your mind, I want it to be brought to the forefront, because it's really important to start planning for changes in season and changes in rhythm in advance.
The majority of the things that you do as a business owner, whether it is delivering projects to a client or doing something on your back end, it takes some time. It takes runway to create those changes. And like I said, some of the things I've been working through are some of the logistics, including what would it mean for the podcast to have me off and what that means in terms of the content and value that I have been consistently putting out for all of you.
Last summer, I ran a special series called CEO Summer School. And I know so many of you decided to join me for that and absolutely loved it. I wanted to make sure you are aware if you did not participate the first time or weren't a listener at that point and missed it, you can absolutely still go through that series. It's applicable really any time of year and has some really great episodes that pair with individual lessons that you get sent straight to your inbox. So if you do wanna participate in that still, you can go to desiid.com/summer-school and sign up and you can just follow along on your own time.
But back to what I was saying is, it's time to make some decisions and make some plans now. And I don't know about you, but even over our winter break, I was starting to get things about summer camp. And then right in January, it was time to be like, you need to plan out your kids’ entire summer. And I definitely have done that I've got the dust settled on the whole summer camp situation.
And if you're a parent, you probably were thrust into that to some extent yourself. So this episode is really a reminder to yes, we've got all of that. Like if we are caregivers, got to figure out everybody else, but don't forget about you and your business. Don't forget about what you need and want for the summer season.
Maybe you, like me, are thinking about taking a larger chunk of time off, or maybe you have a desire to work less, and that might mean summer Fridays, or travel a bit more over the summer where you've got several periods of weeks off, or long weekends, whatever it is, wherever you fall on that spectrum, now's the time to set your intention for the summer and how you want it to look and feel and start putting in place the pieces that need to happen to make that plan possible for you.
Often what I see with my interior design business owners is that they're so stuck in the day-to-day management that they don't give themselves enough of a runway to appropriately plan for their summer schedule. And then once it gets kind of actually close to summer, and they start thinking about it, and they go, oh, that'd be really nice if I could do x, y, or z, it becomes a real crunch, or they're just pulled in too many directions and they feel like they really have to compromise on what they want because they didn't define it early enough.
Sometimes what happens is they'll go, well, I'll just do it next year, but I don't want that to happen for you. Let's set the stage early and be planful in how you approach this so that it can actually happen. What I want to do with today's episode is give you the 10 things you need to think about and need to do now and get started on to prepare your interior design business for a summer break or a summer schedule.
This will be applicable wherever you are on your desires for taking time off, scaling back, navigating inconsistent schedules with your kids, your team members, all of those things, because of course, other people will impact how this goes for you. So you want to be able to look ahead and see how those things are going to influence your schedule, your availability, capacity, all those things.
And as I was putting this episode together, I'll just make this side note, this could absolutely apply if you are wanting to take any kind of extended leave from the business or take additional time off, whether that is for maternity leave, health leave of some sort, or potentially wanting to care for someone in your family who needs additional support. So this will all be applicable to that as well.
Alright, so let's dive in. The very first thing that you need to do to prepare your business for summer is to start with your vision and tap into possibility. This is your place to dream up what would your ideal summer business look like and get yourself to start thinking about not just why you couldn't do it, because that might be your brain's initial response, is, oh yeah, that sounds nice, but not for me. And start thinking about how could it be possible to have what I want.
Now, whenever I start to think about ideal life and business vision, which is something I do with my private clients, or even just thinking about what do I want these three months of summer to look like? Always give yourself permission to think big and worry about the how later, right? Because if we get too bogged down in how it's gonna work and the logistics right off the bat, we start to shrink our vision and what we want becomes this like tiny little shriveled pod of what it is we actually want.
So give yourself the ability to open the door wide open to what it is you want. And then we can figure out the logistics as we go. But you want to know where is it that I actually want to head so that we can then start to think about what is possible and how you could create that.
Once you're clear on what it is that you want the summer business to look like, then you can get into the logistics. And that's what a lot of these other pieces are going to be.
So the second thing that you need to do is decide your working hours. Now, I always suggest you have your working hours solidified and that's not to say that, you know, Like there won't ever be some end flow to it, but have a container within which you work. Otherwise the work bleeds everywhere. And if you need more support with that, definitely check out episode 26. That episode is called what office hours. That'll give you some extra help around that.
So you want to know when you're working. And you know, I know firsthand how inconsistent the summer schedule can be, especially if you're like piecing together camps. And I don't know, like my kids, well, now one of my kids, her summer swim schedule, their practice is from 9:45 to 11 in the morning, which is just really optimal, isn't it?
So there may be a very consistent cadence to your working hours, there may not, but we need to decide what they are. Maybe they are, you know, for a period of time, this is what they look like for a couple of weeks, and then another couple of weeks, they look a different way, whatever it is, we got to decide. Otherwise, like I said, it'll be all over the place. You'll feel like you're always working and never off. So give yourself a container, do yourself that favor.
The next thing you want to do schedule wise, is get everyone's vacation on the calendar. So everyone being if you have a team or contractors that you rely on heavily in the business, and also your vacation dates. So vacation dates could be if you're taking every Friday off during the summer, that could be a vacation date, it could be blocks of time where you're gone for a week.
Whenever you're gonna be taking time off, make sure it's noted. And I always love to give some time that is blocked off from meetings or any obligations before and after leaving. I call that runway. It helps you wrap things up and ease into the time off and then also gives you some time to integrate back into the real world and get yourself settled.
Some of my clients love to have the office closed for the entire team for a specific period of time, whether it's over the holidays or the summer. It might be that you're going to be out of the office, but you still have team in the office. Maybe it's a contractor or builder that you're heavily involved with a project and they're taking time off, whatever it is, just think through who am I engaged with on a regular basis? And if they were not physically present or actively working on something that relates to me, would that impact me? And we need to know that and get it documented so that we're aware of how that's going to impact number four.
Number four is to map out your project timelines and deadlines. This is a great practice in general. And I know a lot of designers have different ways of doing this. Some of my clients love to have a big whiteboard in their office. You can absolutely do that. Some use like sticky notes and move that around. I love a good spreadsheet. Actually I don't really love spreadsheets that much but visually I like a spreadsheet.
It's one of the ways that I keep track of my client capacity and I want to give you this really incredible free download that you can use if you're interested in having a visual way to track your project timelines and your capacity. A colleague of mine, Kirsten Brenders, she is an online business manager and she has extensive experience running large scale projects in commercial interior design firms. And she started her own business and now works with both commercial and residential businesses.
And at some point, we were talking about project tracking. And she shared this spreadsheet with me. That's just incredible that she's put together for her clients. And I asked her for this episode, specifically if she would turn it into a free download. And she said yes. So if you don't have a way that you're tracking your project deadlines, definitely download this ASAP.
I'm going to give you the link right now, but also it'll be in the show notes. So it's kirstinbrenders.myflodesk.com/timeline. You can go check it out. It's all color coded. She's got little icons for when you're gonna be out of the office. And this of course could mark other people out of the office too, marking out project milestones. I mean, it's just, it's a really awesome spreadsheet and it's free. So go grab it and then you can update it with everything that I'm telling you to think through.
So make sure just everything is on there. Even those things you think won't take very long. There's always those things. Don't let those little floaty things stay off. We need to know where everything is. Because then you can take a look at that spreadsheet or however you track it and look at do I need to make any adjustments? Do I need to spread out the meetings in a different way?
Do I need to even just move the next meeting date so it's not the day after I arrive back from vacation and I'm still trying to get in the groove of things? Do you need to get certain things done and get some additional support on board in order to get things done before you're headed out? Right? We'll talk about that a little bit more in a bit.
But just make sure everything is on however you want to track your project timelines and deadlines so that you can see how do those project milestones, kickoffs, wrap-ups, installs, all of that, how do they align with what I want my summer schedule to be? And if it looks like they're not aligning, then you can decide what you wanna do about it.
Number five is that you need to communicate with anyone who's impacted by scheduling changes or shifts so that you can inform them of what's happening and set expectations. As I said before, that might be shifting around some timelines. It might be just letting people know when you're gonna be out of the office so that you can address any of their needs or concerns or deliverables before you leave. So you can be off when you're off.
It could be saying, I'm going to be out and so you should reach out to this person. You can think through what out of office reminders you need to have on at this point. The main thing is that you are letting everyone know what they need to know, based on the things that you've already decided, and make sure expectations are clear, and letting you know, especially your clients know that you are absolutely there for them and want to support them and have everything under control. And this is the plan. And this is when you'll be gone. And for sure, you'll take care of them when you return.
Of course, this is going to help with the client experience because client experience is always elevated when there's very clear expectations that you follow through on. And it's also gonna really help you because if you set expectations, that means you've made clear decisions on what you're doing and not doing and when you're doing it and how you're doing it, right? Because in order to set the expectation, you have to have had that internal conversation with yourself first.
So this will give you a better experience during the summer as well, as your clients being cared for while also honoring the schedule you wanna have. The sixth thing you can do to prepare your interior design business for summer is determine what needs to be done for projects before the summer schedule happens, especially if there is a significant difference from business as usual, or you're going to be out more and the team is still moving things along, and you're not going to be accessible to them.
This could also be if there's deadlines that would be impacted by a team member being out for a period of time, whether that's a few days a week, or longer. I was just coaching one of my private clients on this actually, and it's a key team member who's going to be out on maternity leave over the summer. So this is something that we're needing to think about now.
Number six is really all about getting your arms around what is the workload, what are the deliverables, and what are the milestones and deadlines we need to have in order to make the summer schedule happen. We've been talking a lot on this episode about what you want the summer to look and feel like for you. This is also where I'm going to encourage you to think about how you want the lead up to summer to be like.
Sometimes when we're wanting to take some more time off than we typically do, our brain can get a little fired up and switch into a mindset of wanting to work from the place of earning a break, or this belief that we have to pay for the break, either on the front or back end or both. So just be aware if that's coming up for you. And that is definitely something that could be useful for some coaching around.
Number seven is decide what you'll do to support the business during the summer months. This is all about your backend business development. This is upgrades you're making to the business, whether that is systems, maybe it's a website project, maybe it is marketing, maybe it is team development.
I'm not saying you have to do these things or have to do a ton of them, but you do want to decide what am I doing to support the function and health of the business during the summer months if you're still going to be actively engaged with it. If you're still going to be actively engaged and you're not like completely taking time off. And of course, adjusting what you're committing to in the business based on your capacity. So you know, you've heard me talk about quarterly planning a lot.
And I've got lots of episodes on that if you just scroll back in the feed, but I always suggest no more than three internal projects per quarter. And so if you are planning to take a lot of time off, maybe you have one internal project, or maybe you have two, or maybe you have none, right? It's hard to say, just speaking from a blanket sense with this podcast. And of course, when we work together one on one, I'm able to give you that really personalized feedback. So just take this through your own discernment of what is realistic for me to do during the summer.
Of course, this keeps you really focused on moving the business forward based on what your capacity is. And it's also really helpful for when your brain wants to tell you that you're taking too much time off, that you're not doing enough, you should be doing more, yada, yada, yada. Make a decision about what you're doing and equally important, what you're not doing and own it.
Number eight is to determine what support you need in the business. If you wanna work less, but you're not in a position really to change the workload, maybe you need to bring in some additional seasonal support. Or maybe you have a team member who has some flexibility and can up their level of involvement in the business.
Maybe you find someone who, on a temporary basis, is really in charge of sample organization or returning samples, or it's an intern who's gonna help with a lot of the admin work. Whatever it is, you wanna think through who and what is going to help me create the summer that I want while also delivering in my business the way that I want to.
I also encourage you to think about what support you need personally, because when you get support for your personal life, that absolutely is still in support of your business. Maybe there are certain days where you want to jump into the day early so that you can end early. And maybe that means you need to arrange for transportation for your kids. This could look a lot of different ways and you can get very creative with it, but make sure that you are supported.
Number nine is to review your finances. If you're reducing your workload, you want to make sure the math works. When I say that the math works, it means hitting whatever goals that you want or need to hit.
When you go to the numbers, it might not look the way you want it to. That's okay. Knowing what you're working with is always the first step. Just because at first glance, the numbers aren't where you want them to be or need them to be, that's not a problem. You see where you're at, and then you get to work exploring possibilities and all the ways you could create solutions.
This could be a great time to think about the types of services that you're offering or who is the lead on a project. You could think about offering less all-in services like consultations or designer for a day or leaning into furniture only projects, things that are bringing money into the business, but give you more flexibility and leverage over your schedule during months when flexibility can be especially desirable.
You could be marketing projects that maybe you have a lead designer and it wouldn't be something you'd necessarily take on, but they could definitely handle. And so you could be billing them out. Again, you can get creative here.
And I'll say, if you are gonna pivot your services in any way for a summer season, make sure you're building that into your marketing plan now so that potential clients have time to become aware of the service and warm up to the service idea and plan for it. And of course, you'll want to let the people who typically refer to you know that there's this new opportunity or new way of working with you as well so that they can help you spread the word.
The 10th and final thing that I want you to do as you get ready for a summer schedule is to create a fall re-entry plan. This definitely will include deciding how you will handle inquiries that come in over the summer months, and also how you will handle your beautiful business brain popping up ideas that you want to implement over the summer months. But you've committed to doing other things already. So we need to figure out where those are going to sit on a nice pretty shelf.
This fall re-entry plan is so helpful from a planning perspective. Fall is often very busy for many of the clients that I work with, they are parents and so fall can be especially bustling with the start of school. Business tends to pick up again because clients are done with their vacations and they're thinking about their homes, getting ready for the holidays.
So when you have a fall re-entry plan, it's a soft way to ease into things instead of being flung back into your more typical schedule. And you've already decided what that plan is. So you don't have to worry about it. It's set it and forget it. Which brings me to how this is also helpful from a mindset perspective in that it gives your brain a place to rest.
I brought this up before, but if you're taking time off, maybe you're at the lake, you're on vacation, you're just enjoying a Friday of fun and exploring your city because it's beautiful weather and everyone's out of the woodwork. At least that's how it is in Minnesota here. You might start to worry or feel anxious telling yourself you should be doing more or that it's not okay that you're taking this time off or maybe you shouldn't do it. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just do a little bit more even though you said you weren't going to.
When this happens, you can gently remind yourself that you actually have a good solid plan that you've already worked through and that you can tell your brain, just chill out. You've made lots of intentional choices. You've thought it through, and it's okay to be taking this time for yourself.
It really is so useful, and I don't like to talk about it this way necessarily, but I know a lot of people think about it this way, but it is productive to take time off. You come back re-energized, refreshed, rejuvenated, distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?
Sometimes a little bit of separation from your business can go a long way into tuning back into why you love what you do, right? It's a good idea, but our brain forgets. And so you need to remind yourself that it's wonderful that you are having your summer schedule and having some fun.
All right, those are the 10 things. I'll give you a quick recap. And if you wanna have a way to go step-by-step through this, all of the transcripts for every single episode of the podcast are on the website. So if you go to desicreswell.com, click on the podcast tab, that is where you can find every single episode and the full transcript. So you could go through and just even copy and paste these steps and then work through them very systematically.
The 10 steps to get your interior design business ready for summer are:
One, start with vision and tap into possibility . Two, decide your working hours. Three, get everyone's vacation and out of office dates on the calendar, including yours. Number four, map out your project timelines and deadlines. And this is where you're going to go download that fantastic spreadsheet from Kirsten in the show notes. Number five, communicate with the appropriate parties to inform and set expectations.
Number six, determine what needs to be done for projects before the summer schedules or things that are impacted with time off or varying schedule cadences. Number seven, decide what you'll do to support the business during the summer months. Number eight, determine what support you need in the business. Number nine, review your finances. And number 10, create a fall re-entry plan.
When you do these 10 things, you are really setting your business up for success and supporting yourself as the business owner in having both the business and the life that you want in that season. When you plan in advance and with this level of intentionality, you really can make it happen.
I'd love to hear what you're envisioning for yourself this summer. You can send me a message on Instagram @DesiCreswell, or send me an email, desi@desiid.com. Or if you're on my email list, you just reply back.
Also before we sign off, two quick reminders. If you are interested in working with me one on one, head over to desicreswell.com/coaching. And that's where you can learn all about Design to Thrive private coaching partnerships, which are completely customized to you and supporting you as the interior design business owner. That's where you can get on the waitlist, which is how you get first dibs on those spots when they become available.
And then the second reminder is to rate, review, and share the podcast. Those are three great ways that you can help support the show. And if you get value out of what I'm sharing and love hearing these every week, I would so appreciate it if you would take the time, it really only takes a minute, to either rate, review, or share your favorite episode with a designer friend so that you can help me spread the word.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode, and until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week.
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 where you'll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you're hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I'll talk to you next week.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Music.
Previous
Previous
126. How to Stop Doing Things Last Minute: 5 Tips to Take Control
Next
Next