18. How to Recession-Proof Your Interior Design Business
How can your interior design business thrive even during challenging economic times? During the recession that began in 2008, I actually moved cities from Chicago to Minneapolis and was able to secure a position. While that might have been seen as a risky move at the time, I was able to position myself for success, and I’m sharing the secret with you in this episode.
There are three pillars you need to implement that will help you find success in a recession, and a handful of skills you need to support those pillars. Whatever your thoughts about the economy are, whether you’re worried about a looming financial crisis or not, I’m showing you how to protect your business so you can deal with anything that comes your way.
Tune in this week to discover the three pillars of recession-proofing your interior design business and how to implement them before it’s too late. I’m sharing the two categories I see designers falling into when it comes to dealing with uncertainty in general, how to build business relationships in a recession, and how to become the certainty your business needs to make it through uncertain times.
Out of Overwhelm is my signature six-month program designed to take you from overwhelmed and stressed to profitable, in control, and fulfilled. Applications open in mid-May and we kick off the next round in July 2023, so if you love the topics covered on the podcast, click here to get yourself on the waitlist!
If you loved today’s topic, let’s make sure you never miss an episode. Follow the show now wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you haven’t already, make the time to leave me a rating and review. As a special thank you for taking the time to share your feedback, I’ll send you a little mid-week pick-me-up in the mail, so simply screenshot your review and send me a message on Instagram!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
My own experience of navigating a major global financial crisis.
The experience my clients are having currently and the impact of a possible recession.
3 pillars to recession-proofing your business.
Why these pillars are vital, whatever your thoughts are about the economy currently.
The cyclical nature of the interior design industry, independent of the economy.
Why worry is never useful and you can always pivot to deal with anything that comes your way.
How to be in control of your business and your results and make aligned decisions, whether we’re in a recession or not.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, designer. You’re listening to episode 18. This is the one where I’m sharing the three pillars of recession-proofing your interior design business.
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. As always, I’m thrilled to be in your ears for another episode. Today, we’re going to be talking about recession-proofing your business. And as I was preparing to record this, I was thinking about my experience with recessions and really how to be successful when there are more challenging economic times.
And one of the things I was thinking about was our move from Chicago to Minneapolis. We moved to Minneapolis, the area where we live now, from Chicago. And it was about 2008, so quite a while ago now. And that was really the last coming of a major recession. This could have been a really bad time to move to a new city and be looking for new employment. But move we did, based on my husband needing to move for his training.
And what ended up happening was that I was actually hired for multiple consulting positions as a designer, and then hired at an international design and architecture firm. And when I was hired at the firm, layoffs were actively in progress. And in fact, they were consistently happening throughout the two years while I worked there.
I often think back to that and think what a strange time to be completely swamped at work, be totally overwhelmed with the amount of drawings and selections I had to make. And at the same time, there were layoffs happening on a regular basis and kind of never knowing if I would be next to go.
And when I look back at that, I really can see now how I was able to position myself for success when there were a lot of others struggling. Both positioning myself for success in securing all of the positions that I had when we moved here, and also in setting myself up to succeed in the position once I had it secured.
It really comes down to the three pillars that I continue to focus on in my coaching business today. And now I do it with more precision and purpose because I have awareness of these pillars and new skills to support the pillars. And that’s really what I want to share with you today. These three pillars of recession proofing your business boil down to CEO mindset, unique skill sets, and relationship-based marketing. We’re going to talk about all three of those pillars in today’s episode.
I also want to say that there are people who are saying right now that we’re currently in a recession. There are some that would say we aren’t in a recession. There are some that are saying if we go into a recession we’ll recover quickly. But whatever your stance is on the current economy, these are important pillars to always be focusing on in your business, recession or not.
We know that even when things are in a more steady state, there’s a cyclical nature to our industry. So whether you think we’re in a recession or not, are worried about one coming, I want you to be paying attention to these three pillars. Before I go in depth to each of these three pillars, I do want to give a shout out to R Artspace who left an incredible review about the podcast. I so appreciate that.
They titled the review, “A well of wisdom.” They said, “Desi is the exact person you need in your corner or earbuds as you look to grow your business without the mind drama. She gives practical, no fluff advice and delivers the content in a way that makes you feel calm, encouraged and motivated. Each episode is full of amazing tips and actionable items that will benefit designers, but also any service-based business owner. I highly recommend this show to the women who want a more peaceful life and also a booming business.”
Thank you so much, R Artspace. I really do appreciate the support. I want you to send me your address on Instagram, @DesiCreswell, and I want to send you a treat in the mail. And you, designer, I want to send you something in the mail too. So head on over to wherever you listen to this podcast and leave me a review. Screenshot it, and then send it to me on Instagram and I’ll send you a little goodie in the mail as well.
All right, let’s get into what these three pillars are and how you can use them in your business. The reason I wanted to do this episode is because I have been, of course, paying attention to the news and hearing from designers and hearing other conversations happening in the industry around possible economic implications.
And maybe you’ve seen a slowdown in business, or maybe more hesitancy in clients to invest. And what’s kind of interesting is you haven’t loved the frantic pace you’ve been moving at over the last few years. But then there’s the simultaneous worry about business slowing down. Or I’ve been talking to designers who are still humming along, doing great, but also there is uncertainty about what is to come.
I think it’s important and smart to keep an eye on the data. But what I’ve noticed lately is that many of you are thinking about where your business will be, possibly for the worse, in the next year from a place of worry and stress and reactivity. I often see designers fall into two categories when it seems that there’s a greater level of uncertainty, whether we’re talking about the economy or just how a client is going to react to some sort of news you have to share with them.
The first way I see this is in over action, so getting into that hyperdrive. And the other way that I see it is under action, which is kind of more of that burying your head in the sand or becoming frozen. And these are both really caused by feelings of uncertainty, overwhelm, and confusion, but for various people, they end up presenting differently.
Of course, it’s natural to worry, we all worry from time to time. But worry is never useful. It really pretends to put itself in the position of you being at the effect of your circumstances. Or in other words, making you believe you don’t have control over where you’ll be in the next year. Yes, there are outside influences. But what I want you to remember is you’re the constant. You get to decide where you’ll be next year and how you pivot and adjust if there are different conditions in our industry.
This is so much of what I teach with Out Of Overwhelmed clients, is that you can be in control of your business and profit and schedule. It starts really with asking better questions and taking radical responsibility for your results. Clients learn how to do both of these so they can really become empowered CEOs. This is what I want for you, too. How you decide to think, feel, and act now is going to be the difference between stressing about the future and feeling like your results are just dealt to you and being resilient and paving a successful path forward.
Earlier I mentioned that there are really three pillars of recession-proofing your business. The running thread among all three of these pillars is that they focus on what you can control, not what is outside of your control. When you ask the question, “what’s going to happen” with the underlying assumption that it’s going to be bad, your brain actually goes to work to find supporting evidence. Meaning if you ask it a negatively framed question, you’re going to get negatively framed responses.
This is why I teach my clients the tool of powerful questions, where they learn to ask high-quality questions, which are positively framed questions based on the assumption that there is always a solution. And this opens up their minds to innovation and a higher level of thinking. It puts them back in the driver’s seat.
This is very different than ignoring facts or data that you have access to or burying your head in the sand. You are using the data or information to inform what you can do, what is within your control and how you want to make a plan to move forward.
When you are in this empowered state of being in control and in the driver’s seat, you’re able to take action from a calm, grounded place. This increases your effectiveness and ability to problem solve, such an important skill no matter what we’re talking about.
Let’s dive into the three pillars specifically of recession-proofing your interior design business so I can give you some actionable next steps. The very first pillar is CEO mindset. When I talk about CEO mindset, what I mean is that you see yourself as the leader of your company and you dedicate consistent time to lead as the CEO, whether you have a full team or it’s just you. This also means that you believe you have influence over the results you create.
When you believe you have influence, this dramatically impacts how you show up in your business, the types of actions you take and it, of course, determines the outcomes you’re able to create. For many of you, during this really busy boom, long-term planning and marketing, which are great uses of your CEO mindset, went to the wayside or they became even more non-existent if they weren’t really in place to begin with.
What ended up happening is you were just kind of in this survival mode, trying to keep up, which isn’t sustainable. You want a sustainable business, and the way to create that is beginning with having the mindset of a CEO. As we talk about recession-proofing your company, this is an excellent time to look at what it is you want for your company. Not what you think you can get, but what you want.
And then make decisions accordingly about how you’re going to spend your time and what actions you’ll take to bring you closer to that vision. Your vision is about how you start making decisions based on what you want in the future, not based on heightened negative emotion, or reactivity in the present.
To get support with developing your business and life vision, go to desiid.com/vision, I have created a journal to walk you step-by-step through this process. You’ll just enter your email and I’ll send it directly to your inbox. Definitely go grab that from the show notes.
Using your vision, I want you to specifically consider how you’re going to market to your ideal client, and how you’re going to invest in your business. I want you to look at how you’re spending your time. Are you looking at the profitability of certain project types so that you can get more of those project types, that you can adjust your fees or the way that you bill to increase profitability?
Maybe there are systems and processes this would be a great time to implement for more efficiency and effectiveness for the work that you have. Maybe it’s time to look at the boundaries around scope that you’ve set, or maybe haven’t set, and decide what you need to develop and uphold.
These are all so important for you to consider because they’re all going to impact your ability to create income in your business. And if there’s a point when there is less business coming in, you want to be able to leverage these factors. And it all starts with seeing yourself as the leader of your business and using your time wisely as the CEO. Of course, I would argue that all of these are incredibly important at any time. But I do want to call specific attention to them with the topic of this episode.
One of the things that I see clients struggle with is following through on their CEO time. They don’t treat an appointment with themselves and their business as important as they treat appointments with others. You have to learn how to take yourself and what you prioritize for your business and the longevity of your business as seriously as you take commitments to others.
Often this will look like making plans to do the CEO stuff, but then agreeing to a last minute client appointment. Or doing those easier, quick to cross off tasks that give you instant gratification without long-term gain. You’re going to need to shift the relationship you have with yourself and your business. And if this is something you struggle with, you have to join us and the next round of Out Of Overwhelm.
One of the things you’re going to learn to do is to become self-accountable. That is a huge skill set of being a CEO. With your belief being my commitments to myself matter, I matter. This is how you become accountable to yourself. And we cover it in depth in Out Of Overwhelm with an entire module and a 30-day focus on follow through.
Even though when I last experienced a recession and was looking for employment through a firm, I still very much had a CEO mindset even though I wouldn’t have identified it as that back then, where I was really focused on where I wanted to go, the type of position I wanted to have, the type of place I wanted to work, even down to the location of where I wanted to work. And then I used that vision to take consistent action that aligned with where I wanted to go.
And I think that was so key in order to build momentum and be determined and committed. Because it would have been easy to say, “Oh, well, it’s a really hard time to get a job right now. I guess I might not be able to.” Instead, I decided this is what I want and I’m going to go after it. And I’m a valuable asset to add to this business.
So whether you’re working for somebody else, newer to business, or you’ve been in the business for decades, as some of my clients have been, you can have a CEO mindset.
The second pillar of recession-proofing your interior design business is unique skill sets. This includes identifying what your unique skill sets are and doubling down on them. This was a huge contributor to why I was able to be hired at a top firm during a recession.
Even now, as a coach, I have a really unique blend of skills that you don’t see in this space. I’ve got my background in commercial and residential design. I’m a certified life coach on my way to master level certification through The Life Coach School. I blend mindset skills with really practical, actionable strategies to create solutions that work for your unique business, versus offering a one size fits all approach.
And I really understand the more intuitive side of running a business as well, with my training as an inner voice facilitator through Jess Lively. This is really where I get the emotional aspect to our business and I’m able to guide you through that while making really high-level decisions for yourself.
Having a unique skill set makes you invaluable to others, and helps you stand out when you need it most. I want you to think about what is your unique skill set or skill sets? Where do you really shine? These could be relational skill sets or more soft skill sets, if you will, or maybe more tangible technical skills. You could also ask yourself, what have my clients loved about their project or the way that I delivered it? And how do I offer those clients more of it, but in a different way to increase the lifetime value?
When you’ve identified what those unique skill sets are, I want you to think about how you market yourself, and talk about yourself through that lens. This is how you stand out and differentiate yourself. This is always true, and it’s especially true when there’s less business activity. You have to be clear where you shine, so it’s easy to talk about and share that with others.
I can’t remember where I heard this, but I remember hearing someone say, “No one knows how good you are until you tell them.” And that just blew my mind because I think so often we think, “Well, if I’m really talented, if I work hard enough, somebody is going to notice.” And yeah, that might happen. But they’re a lot more likely to notice if you’re clear on your specific skill sets that make you unique and highly valuable to an interior design project, and you can actively share that with them.
When you identify your unique skill sets, this also helps you stay in your own lane to keep your energy and action focused. When there’s concern about the economy, you might be tempted to start tossing around lots of new ways to serve clients or serving clients or project types that you just aren’t really well suited to. This is totally natural, let me say, because often we confuse taking action with creating certainty, right?
We try to do a bunch of things to try and prove to ourselves or create this evidence that we can feel certain about, that there will be enough work, that there will be enough funds in our business. Action is, of course, necessary. And also, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get the outcome you want. So you always want to be paying attention to what’s the effective action I can take, not just spinning in action.
And this isn’t to say that you can’t tweak your offerings to meet current market conditions. What I do mean is that you don’t want to start grabbing for straws, attending every last training or involving yourself in types of work that you have little experience in. That’s going to complicate your business and create inefficiencies, the need for new processes, and just more trouble.
The problem with that is then you think about the opportunity cost of doing a lot of new things at once or having huge learning curves in how you set up and serve clients. The learning curve becomes quite high. When you could be leaning into what you already excel at, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. It’s more subtle adjustments.
Start with what you already do know and what you’re already good at and build off that to be consistently communicating those areas of expertise through your marketing, your sales, collateral and your conversations.
The third and last pillar of recession-proofing your interior design business is relationship-based marketing. Relationships are so important. We are an industry built on relationships. I think that is really something that has gone to the wayside as well as we’ve gotten so, so busy. We’re all connected, but in a really frenetic way without that deep sustained connection.
So now is the time to intentionally decide which new relationships you want to establish in your business and which ones you want to continue to nurture to support the consistent flow of clients.
When I was building out my residential practice, my clients were about 95% referral, and I love, love marketing and working with people this way. It’s fun. I have met so many incredible people through my businesses. And I’ve been able to be a resource to the people that they serve. They’re able to be a resource to who I serve. Everyone wins and we get to build on each other.
This really goes back to where we started with CEO mindset. Investing in relationships, believing that you have something really valuable to add to the relationship, that is all part of your responsibility as a CEO. To start with, this could just look like reaching out to past clients. They already love you, so what else could you work on with them?
You can also consider what established relationships have brought you your best clients? How could you continue to build on those relationships? You also might want to think about what are the new relationships I need to establish? When I’m thinking about connecting or making new relationships, or when I’m advising my clients on this, I like to think about who else is interacting with your ideal client in an adjacent way.
This could be mortgage brokers, real estate agents, architects. It could even be other services that are outside of our industry bubble, such as a personal trainer. You could be thinking about the people that I want to work with who have the discretionary income to hire me, what else do they spend their money on? And go start to build relationships with those people.
You can also get involved in something that you actually really enjoy, like a nonprofit or some other type of organization where your ideal client might be hanging out so that you can get to know them directly. It’s another one of those win/wins. You’re putting yourself in positions where you’re going to get to know your ideal client and become top of mind. And you’re going to be able to have fun and give back while you’re doing it.
I also think nonprofits and other organizations are a really great way to sharpen new skill sets if you do choose to build out your toolbox. For example, I used to be really involved in the Junior League. And that was incredible because I not only met clients through that, I met friends through that, I was able to support organizations in our community that I really cared about and wanted to support.
And I was able to take on leadership positions where I was able to learn how to write a press release, I learned about fundraising. I learned all these valuable skills that I now use in my business through this organization that I really enjoyed being a part of and served me in so many other ways.
All three of these pillars, CEO mindset, unique skill sets and relationship-based marketing are always going to be important. And they’re even more important when you’re experiencing a slowdown or you’re taking proactive action should a slowdown occur. These three pillars are where you focus your time, energy and attention on what you can control in your business, and decide where you’re headed instead of seeing where the wind is going to take you.
Your power in a recession, or otherwise, lies in making empowered decisions that align with where you want to go, not where you’re afraid you might end up. I encourage you to pick even just one of these pillars to focus on in the next month. You don’t have to do it all at once, just get started.
And if you want my support with any of this, join me in Out Of Overwhelm this summer where we will work with mindset and strategy. Enrollment is going to kick off mid-May. And you can get first dibs on the limited spots plus access to an exclusive bonus when you join the waitlist. That link is going to be in the show notes.
In the next episode I’m going to be sharing about an experiment I’m about to start in my business, and it has to do with Instagram. I can’t wait to share that with you and give you a little peek behind the scenes of my business and my brain. Until then I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
I’m going to make the bold assumption that you enjoyed today’s topic. Let’s make sure you never miss an episode; follow the show now wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you haven’t already, I would really appreciate it if you’d make the time to leave me a rating and review. This is how I know what you’re loving so I can share more of it.
And it’s also how you can help others find The Interior Design Business CEO. As a thank you for leaving a rating and review, I want to send you a little midweek pick-me-up in the mail. Simply screenshot your review and send me a message on Instagram, @DesiCreswell. I’ll talk to you next 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. 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. As always, I’m thrilled to be in your ears for another episode. Today, we’re going to be talking about recession-proofing your business. And as I was preparing to record this, I was thinking about my experience with recessions and really how to be successful when there are more challenging economic times.
And one of the things I was thinking about was our move from Chicago to Minneapolis. We moved to Minneapolis, the area where we live now, from Chicago. And it was about 2008, so quite a while ago now. And that was really the last coming of a major recession. This could have been a really bad time to move to a new city and be looking for new employment. But move we did, based on my husband needing to move for his training.
And what ended up happening was that I was actually hired for multiple consulting positions as a designer, and then hired at an international design and architecture firm. And when I was hired at the firm, layoffs were actively in progress. And in fact, they were consistently happening throughout the two years while I worked there.
I often think back to that and think what a strange time to be completely swamped at work, be totally overwhelmed with the amount of drawings and selections I had to make. And at the same time, there were layoffs happening on a regular basis and kind of never knowing if I would be next to go.
And when I look back at that, I really can see now how I was able to position myself for success when there were a lot of others struggling. Both positioning myself for success in securing all of the positions that I had when we moved here, and also in setting myself up to succeed in the position once I had it secured.
It really comes down to the three pillars that I continue to focus on in my coaching business today. And now I do it with more precision and purpose because I have awareness of these pillars and new skills to support the pillars. And that’s really what I want to share with you today. These three pillars of recession proofing your business boil down to CEO mindset, unique skill sets, and relationship-based marketing. We’re going to talk about all three of those pillars in today’s episode.
I also want to say that there are people who are saying right now that we’re currently in a recession. There are some that would say we aren’t in a recession. There are some that are saying if we go into a recession we’ll recover quickly. But whatever your stance is on the current economy, these are important pillars to always be focusing on in your business, recession or not.
We know that even when things are in a more steady state, there’s a cyclical nature to our industry. So whether you think we’re in a recession or not, are worried about one coming, I want you to be paying attention to these three pillars. Before I go in depth to each of these three pillars, I do want to give a shout out to R Artspace who left an incredible review about the podcast. I so appreciate that.
They titled the review, “A well of wisdom.” They said, “Desi is the exact person you need in your corner or earbuds as you look to grow your business without the mind drama. She gives practical, no fluff advice and delivers the content in a way that makes you feel calm, encouraged and motivated. Each episode is full of amazing tips and actionable items that will benefit designers, but also any service-based business owner. I highly recommend this show to the women who want a more peaceful life and also a booming business.”
Thank you so much, R Artspace. I really do appreciate the support. I want you to send me your address on Instagram, @DesiCreswell, and I want to send you a treat in the mail. And you, designer, I want to send you something in the mail too. So head on over to wherever you listen to this podcast and leave me a review. Screenshot it, and then send it to me on Instagram and I’ll send you a little goodie in the mail as well.
All right, let’s get into what these three pillars are and how you can use them in your business. The reason I wanted to do this episode is because I have been, of course, paying attention to the news and hearing from designers and hearing other conversations happening in the industry around possible economic implications.
And maybe you’ve seen a slowdown in business, or maybe more hesitancy in clients to invest. And what’s kind of interesting is you haven’t loved the frantic pace you’ve been moving at over the last few years. But then there’s the simultaneous worry about business slowing down. Or I’ve been talking to designers who are still humming along, doing great, but also there is uncertainty about what is to come.
I think it’s important and smart to keep an eye on the data. But what I’ve noticed lately is that many of you are thinking about where your business will be, possibly for the worse, in the next year from a place of worry and stress and reactivity. I often see designers fall into two categories when it seems that there’s a greater level of uncertainty, whether we’re talking about the economy or just how a client is going to react to some sort of news you have to share with them.
The first way I see this is in over action, so getting into that hyperdrive. And the other way that I see it is under action, which is kind of more of that burying your head in the sand or becoming frozen. And these are both really caused by feelings of uncertainty, overwhelm, and confusion, but for various people, they end up presenting differently.
Of course, it’s natural to worry, we all worry from time to time. But worry is never useful. It really pretends to put itself in the position of you being at the effect of your circumstances. Or in other words, making you believe you don’t have control over where you’ll be in the next year. Yes, there are outside influences. But what I want you to remember is you’re the constant. You get to decide where you’ll be next year and how you pivot and adjust if there are different conditions in our industry.
This is so much of what I teach with Out Of Overwhelmed clients, is that you can be in control of your business and profit and schedule. It starts really with asking better questions and taking radical responsibility for your results. Clients learn how to do both of these so they can really become empowered CEOs. This is what I want for you, too. How you decide to think, feel, and act now is going to be the difference between stressing about the future and feeling like your results are just dealt to you and being resilient and paving a successful path forward.
Earlier I mentioned that there are really three pillars of recession-proofing your business. The running thread among all three of these pillars is that they focus on what you can control, not what is outside of your control. When you ask the question, “what’s going to happen” with the underlying assumption that it’s going to be bad, your brain actually goes to work to find supporting evidence. Meaning if you ask it a negatively framed question, you’re going to get negatively framed responses.
This is why I teach my clients the tool of powerful questions, where they learn to ask high-quality questions, which are positively framed questions based on the assumption that there is always a solution. And this opens up their minds to innovation and a higher level of thinking. It puts them back in the driver’s seat.
This is very different than ignoring facts or data that you have access to or burying your head in the sand. You are using the data or information to inform what you can do, what is within your control and how you want to make a plan to move forward.
When you are in this empowered state of being in control and in the driver’s seat, you’re able to take action from a calm, grounded place. This increases your effectiveness and ability to problem solve, such an important skill no matter what we’re talking about.
Let’s dive into the three pillars specifically of recession-proofing your interior design business so I can give you some actionable next steps. The very first pillar is CEO mindset. When I talk about CEO mindset, what I mean is that you see yourself as the leader of your company and you dedicate consistent time to lead as the CEO, whether you have a full team or it’s just you. This also means that you believe you have influence over the results you create.
When you believe you have influence, this dramatically impacts how you show up in your business, the types of actions you take and it, of course, determines the outcomes you’re able to create. For many of you, during this really busy boom, long-term planning and marketing, which are great uses of your CEO mindset, went to the wayside or they became even more non-existent if they weren’t really in place to begin with.
What ended up happening is you were just kind of in this survival mode, trying to keep up, which isn’t sustainable. You want a sustainable business, and the way to create that is beginning with having the mindset of a CEO. As we talk about recession-proofing your company, this is an excellent time to look at what it is you want for your company. Not what you think you can get, but what you want.
And then make decisions accordingly about how you’re going to spend your time and what actions you’ll take to bring you closer to that vision. Your vision is about how you start making decisions based on what you want in the future, not based on heightened negative emotion, or reactivity in the present.
To get support with developing your business and life vision, go to desiid.com/vision, I have created a journal to walk you step-by-step through this process. You’ll just enter your email and I’ll send it directly to your inbox. Definitely go grab that from the show notes.
Using your vision, I want you to specifically consider how you’re going to market to your ideal client, and how you’re going to invest in your business. I want you to look at how you’re spending your time. Are you looking at the profitability of certain project types so that you can get more of those project types, that you can adjust your fees or the way that you bill to increase profitability?
Maybe there are systems and processes this would be a great time to implement for more efficiency and effectiveness for the work that you have. Maybe it’s time to look at the boundaries around scope that you’ve set, or maybe haven’t set, and decide what you need to develop and uphold.
These are all so important for you to consider because they’re all going to impact your ability to create income in your business. And if there’s a point when there is less business coming in, you want to be able to leverage these factors. And it all starts with seeing yourself as the leader of your business and using your time wisely as the CEO. Of course, I would argue that all of these are incredibly important at any time. But I do want to call specific attention to them with the topic of this episode.
One of the things that I see clients struggle with is following through on their CEO time. They don’t treat an appointment with themselves and their business as important as they treat appointments with others. You have to learn how to take yourself and what you prioritize for your business and the longevity of your business as seriously as you take commitments to others.
Often this will look like making plans to do the CEO stuff, but then agreeing to a last minute client appointment. Or doing those easier, quick to cross off tasks that give you instant gratification without long-term gain. You’re going to need to shift the relationship you have with yourself and your business. And if this is something you struggle with, you have to join us and the next round of Out Of Overwhelm.
One of the things you’re going to learn to do is to become self-accountable. That is a huge skill set of being a CEO. With your belief being my commitments to myself matter, I matter. This is how you become accountable to yourself. And we cover it in depth in Out Of Overwhelm with an entire module and a 30-day focus on follow through.
Even though when I last experienced a recession and was looking for employment through a firm, I still very much had a CEO mindset even though I wouldn’t have identified it as that back then, where I was really focused on where I wanted to go, the type of position I wanted to have, the type of place I wanted to work, even down to the location of where I wanted to work. And then I used that vision to take consistent action that aligned with where I wanted to go.
And I think that was so key in order to build momentum and be determined and committed. Because it would have been easy to say, “Oh, well, it’s a really hard time to get a job right now. I guess I might not be able to.” Instead, I decided this is what I want and I’m going to go after it. And I’m a valuable asset to add to this business.
So whether you’re working for somebody else, newer to business, or you’ve been in the business for decades, as some of my clients have been, you can have a CEO mindset.
The second pillar of recession-proofing your interior design business is unique skill sets. This includes identifying what your unique skill sets are and doubling down on them. This was a huge contributor to why I was able to be hired at a top firm during a recession.
Even now, as a coach, I have a really unique blend of skills that you don’t see in this space. I’ve got my background in commercial and residential design. I’m a certified life coach on my way to master level certification through The Life Coach School. I blend mindset skills with really practical, actionable strategies to create solutions that work for your unique business, versus offering a one size fits all approach.
And I really understand the more intuitive side of running a business as well, with my training as an inner voice facilitator through Jess Lively. This is really where I get the emotional aspect to our business and I’m able to guide you through that while making really high-level decisions for yourself.
Having a unique skill set makes you invaluable to others, and helps you stand out when you need it most. I want you to think about what is your unique skill set or skill sets? Where do you really shine? These could be relational skill sets or more soft skill sets, if you will, or maybe more tangible technical skills. You could also ask yourself, what have my clients loved about their project or the way that I delivered it? And how do I offer those clients more of it, but in a different way to increase the lifetime value?
When you’ve identified what those unique skill sets are, I want you to think about how you market yourself, and talk about yourself through that lens. This is how you stand out and differentiate yourself. This is always true, and it’s especially true when there’s less business activity. You have to be clear where you shine, so it’s easy to talk about and share that with others.
I can’t remember where I heard this, but I remember hearing someone say, “No one knows how good you are until you tell them.” And that just blew my mind because I think so often we think, “Well, if I’m really talented, if I work hard enough, somebody is going to notice.” And yeah, that might happen. But they’re a lot more likely to notice if you’re clear on your specific skill sets that make you unique and highly valuable to an interior design project, and you can actively share that with them.
When you identify your unique skill sets, this also helps you stay in your own lane to keep your energy and action focused. When there’s concern about the economy, you might be tempted to start tossing around lots of new ways to serve clients or serving clients or project types that you just aren’t really well suited to. This is totally natural, let me say, because often we confuse taking action with creating certainty, right?
We try to do a bunch of things to try and prove to ourselves or create this evidence that we can feel certain about, that there will be enough work, that there will be enough funds in our business. Action is, of course, necessary. And also, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get the outcome you want. So you always want to be paying attention to what’s the effective action I can take, not just spinning in action.
And this isn’t to say that you can’t tweak your offerings to meet current market conditions. What I do mean is that you don’t want to start grabbing for straws, attending every last training or involving yourself in types of work that you have little experience in. That’s going to complicate your business and create inefficiencies, the need for new processes, and just more trouble.
The problem with that is then you think about the opportunity cost of doing a lot of new things at once or having huge learning curves in how you set up and serve clients. The learning curve becomes quite high. When you could be leaning into what you already excel at, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. It’s more subtle adjustments.
Start with what you already do know and what you’re already good at and build off that to be consistently communicating those areas of expertise through your marketing, your sales, collateral and your conversations.
The third and last pillar of recession-proofing your interior design business is relationship-based marketing. Relationships are so important. We are an industry built on relationships. I think that is really something that has gone to the wayside as well as we’ve gotten so, so busy. We’re all connected, but in a really frenetic way without that deep sustained connection.
So now is the time to intentionally decide which new relationships you want to establish in your business and which ones you want to continue to nurture to support the consistent flow of clients.
When I was building out my residential practice, my clients were about 95% referral, and I love, love marketing and working with people this way. It’s fun. I have met so many incredible people through my businesses. And I’ve been able to be a resource to the people that they serve. They’re able to be a resource to who I serve. Everyone wins and we get to build on each other.
This really goes back to where we started with CEO mindset. Investing in relationships, believing that you have something really valuable to add to the relationship, that is all part of your responsibility as a CEO. To start with, this could just look like reaching out to past clients. They already love you, so what else could you work on with them?
You can also consider what established relationships have brought you your best clients? How could you continue to build on those relationships? You also might want to think about what are the new relationships I need to establish? When I’m thinking about connecting or making new relationships, or when I’m advising my clients on this, I like to think about who else is interacting with your ideal client in an adjacent way.
This could be mortgage brokers, real estate agents, architects. It could even be other services that are outside of our industry bubble, such as a personal trainer. You could be thinking about the people that I want to work with who have the discretionary income to hire me, what else do they spend their money on? And go start to build relationships with those people.
You can also get involved in something that you actually really enjoy, like a nonprofit or some other type of organization where your ideal client might be hanging out so that you can get to know them directly. It’s another one of those win/wins. You’re putting yourself in positions where you’re going to get to know your ideal client and become top of mind. And you’re going to be able to have fun and give back while you’re doing it.
I also think nonprofits and other organizations are a really great way to sharpen new skill sets if you do choose to build out your toolbox. For example, I used to be really involved in the Junior League. And that was incredible because I not only met clients through that, I met friends through that, I was able to support organizations in our community that I really cared about and wanted to support.
And I was able to take on leadership positions where I was able to learn how to write a press release, I learned about fundraising. I learned all these valuable skills that I now use in my business through this organization that I really enjoyed being a part of and served me in so many other ways.
All three of these pillars, CEO mindset, unique skill sets and relationship-based marketing are always going to be important. And they’re even more important when you’re experiencing a slowdown or you’re taking proactive action should a slowdown occur. These three pillars are where you focus your time, energy and attention on what you can control in your business, and decide where you’re headed instead of seeing where the wind is going to take you.
Your power in a recession, or otherwise, lies in making empowered decisions that align with where you want to go, not where you’re afraid you might end up. I encourage you to pick even just one of these pillars to focus on in the next month. You don’t have to do it all at once, just get started.
And if you want my support with any of this, join me in Out Of Overwhelm this summer where we will work with mindset and strategy. Enrollment is going to kick off mid-May. And you can get first dibs on the limited spots plus access to an exclusive bonus when you join the waitlist. That link is going to be in the show notes.
In the next episode I’m going to be sharing about an experiment I’m about to start in my business, and it has to do with Instagram. I can’t wait to share that with you and give you a little peek behind the scenes of my business and my brain. Until then I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
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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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