Are you running your interior design business, or is it running you? Between managing clients, tracking expenses, handling purchasing, and keeping up with tax filings, the financial side of an interior design firm can be overwhelming. But what if you could streamline your processes and free up time to focus on what you do best: designing beautiful spaces?

In this episode of the Creative Genius Podcast, host Erin Weir sits down with Corey Greenburg, Director of Sales and Marketing at DesignerAdvantage, to discuss the essential financial systems that interior designers need to succeed. With over a decade of experience helping designers optimize their bookkeeping, purchasing, and business operations, Corey shares valuable insights into how designers can run a more profitable and efficient business.

Corey shared a wealth of knowledge about running your business, including bookkeeping. “The key is to have a system, and that system may look different for every designer out there, but you need to establish that strong system and stick to it.” Corey emphasizes that whether you use QuickBooks, Studio Designer, or another software, consistency is crucial. From falling behind on bank reconciliations to neglecting sales tax filings, Corey outlines the most common financial missteps and how to avoid them.

Corey also discussed:

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• How to make time tracking work for you: Whether you bill hourly or use flat fees, tracking your time effectively can help you identify inefficiencies, improve profitability, and scale your business. Corey suggests tools like Harvest and time-blocking strategies to make the process easier.
  
• The power of outsourcing: “A designer’s hours are precious,” Corey explains. He shares how outsourcing administrative tasks like bookkeeping, purchasing, and even social media can free up time for designers to focus on higher-value activities.
  
• How to build strong vendor relationships: Interior designers rely heavily on vendors, and Corey explains why treating them as partners rather than just suppliers can lead to better pricing, improved service, and a more seamless design process.
  
• Scaling your business the right way: Corey shares a real-world success story of a designer who went from $300,000 in annual revenue to over $10 million by streamlining her operations and leveraging outsourcing to scale her firm.
  
• Mindset shifts for financial success: Many designers are comfortable with the creative side of their business but hesitant about the numbers. Corey explains why viewing financial management as a tool for growth (rather than a dreaded task) is a game-changer for long-term success. “If you run the business right, interior design can be extremely profitable.”
  

To book a call with Corey, you’ll find his calendar link here.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s13e2-shownotes

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

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• Studio Designer, QuickBooks, Harvest: Software tools for financial tracking and time management
  
• Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy: A book on productivity and prioritization
  
• Financial Masterclass at Pearl Collective: A quarterly workshop to help designers master their finances. Check out our events page to see if we’re hosting one soon.
  

Well, Cory, thank you so much for being with us today. Welcome to the Creative Genius Podcast.

That’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks so much, Aaron.

Yeah, so why don’t we just get started with you just telling a little bit about yourself and your company and what you guys do for interior designers.

Yeah, I’d be happy to. And it’s such an honor to be with you guys today. I think there’s a lot of need in the industry for designers to get more data and just best practices. So I love what you guys are doing and it’s great to be with you. I am the Director of Sales and Marketing at Designer Advantage. I’ve been with the company for 10 and a half years and our mission is to really help designers run a great business. We understand.

how difficult the interior design industry is and how difficult of a business it is to run. So, you we provide bookkeeping and purchasing services for designers and we’ve been doing it for 25 years. So Mark Malinsky is our founder and CEO. He has a CPA, his mother is a really talented artist and that’s how he got into the industry. had some connections through his mom and, you know, just kind of realized, like I said, how difficult the business is to run. it’s, as you know, it’s kind of a,

perfect storm with creative thinkers trying to run really difficult businesses. So that’s where we come in. We work with a few hundred designers across the country, but we’re based out of Boston. And that’s where I live and where I grew up as well.

Awesome. Well, I’m jealous of the Boston situation. I’d like to be there a little bit more often.

Yeah, don’t.

Don’t be too jealous in the winter, it gets-

So Cory, interior designers often juggle multiple projects at once. There’s thousands of details in every single project that we are working on. How do, how can they maintain clear and organized financial records without getting overwhelmed with all of the other details that they’re dealing with? I think sometimes the books might be not the main focus.

Yeah.

It’s such a good point and a great question. think, I mean, the key is to have a system and that system may look different for every designer out there, but you need to establish that strong system and stick to it. And if you trust that process, it’s going to work for you. There are a lot of different softwares out there that designers can use to help stay organized. mean, Studio Designer, House Pro.

QuickBooks, we have our own software called Designer Link, but having a software, having a system that you and your team members are comfortably using is so, important. And then, know, some specifics too, just to help stay organized. There are things that we see, you know, by managing the books for designers, there are things that we see that designers sometimes forget to do. And, you know, one of the biggest things is making sure that every single expense that you have is linked to a project.

So you should be enter everything that you enter, everything that you enter into your system that is project related. You need to tag it to that specific project to help stay organized. But, you know, just having that standard system, that standard process really helps designers stay on on tax. Because like I said before, it’s so complicated, this business. You know, you’re essentially running a furniture store with all the purchasing and then you’re also a consultant with your design expertise. So, you know, there’s a lot of moving pieces.

Yeah, you know, I guess as I think about, I know there’s so many different systems and software is that you can use and as I always think about it’s like kind of how I think about spaces is walking through a floor plan. I basically grew up on studio designer and Gail’s residential interior design business. We actually had a designer and desktop at the time. And so that is how I think about it. I know there’s other ways to do it as well. But yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. There’s a lot of options. I think sometimes I talk with a designer who usually smaller firms and they’re trying to manage everything just in Excel or just using Word docs for their proposals and purchase orders. And I just want to pull my hair out because I know there’s a better way to do it and people get stuck in their ways. And I understand that. It’s you get used to your own way of doing things. You don’t want to change it.

There are better ways to do it and the most successful designers have that system, that software that they’re operating.

Well, I mean, we were not even in a process webinar yesterday and designers were talking about, mean, not everybody uses an Asano or a click up, you know, they’re still using their spreadsheets and don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of different spreadsheets that I use in business too, but it was just these you could see these light bulbs popping up of like, gosh, I could get this out of a spreadsheet and into a system. And so, yeah, it would be great to do that with your books as well.

Yeah, without a doubt. mean, we’ve been doing this for a long time and we used to work out of Google Docs. Like there has to be a way for a designer to transfer their item specifications, their details onto a proposal and how we used to work, it was a very manual labor intensive process. And I think there are still a lot of designers operating that way. But when we created our software and when Studio Designer has really taken

Advancements. It’s those systems. Those softwares have helped designers streamline the process and reduce time spent on administrative tasks. That’s what the softwares really are there to do.

Awesome. Okay, well, so let’s get back over to interior designers and bookkeeping mistakes. What are some of the most common bookkeeping mistakes that you see interior designers making and how can they avoid them to ensure smoother financial operations inside of their business?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you know, bookkeeping is scary to a lot of designers. And so, you know, the number one mistake that we see is getting behind on the bookkeeping. know, once you’re a month behind on your bank and credit card reconciliations, it’s almost like, I’m behind, I don’t even want to think about it. I get nervous thinking about it. And then you’re two months behind and then you’re three months behind. And it’s really dangerous if you fall behind on your bank and credit card reconciliations because

Now your reporting is not accurate. can’t look at your books and draw any conclusions on how profitable your projects were or are you making enough profit margin on these billing rates that you currently have. falling behind is a dangerous slope to be on. That applies to bank and credit card reconciliations. It also applies to sales tax filing. So most, if not all, interior designers

have a resale certificate. They’re resellers of product. And so it falls on them to file and pay sales tax each month to the state, which is, it’s risky if you fall behind on that. We’ve seen designers get audited. And if you don’t stay on top of the sales tax filings, that can be really dangerous too.

Yeah, I even in our own business, I’m I’m required. We use abacus and you know I’m required certain moments of the month to reconcile what’s on my credit card and it’s so that when we’re coming into meeting where I want to understand where we’re at on the numbers that we are at a spot where we understand where we’re at in real time instead of like, well that was two months ago and you know that that would be a slippery slope to be on for sure.

Okay, so as we approach tax season, that’s a thing right now. What key financial details should designers be keeping track of throughout the year to avoid any surprises when they’re filing their taxes? I know that that can be a little tricky because you’ve got years that you have really huge projects and a lot of deposits and transactions that are coming through and then you might have some lighter moments of the year as well.

Sure, yeah, and this goes along with what we were just talking about, how important it is to stay up with the books on a monthly basis, because if you fall behind, again, you’re just setting yourself up to fail. So something that we do with our bookkeeping, when there are expenses, when we’re reconciling, if we don’t know what they are, we book them to an account called uncategorized expense, which a lot of business owners may be familiar with. We’re really sticklers about clearing out those uncapped charges every month.

So, know, when it’s tax season at the end of the year, if you have a full year of un-cat expenses that you have to go through, it’s a daunting task and you really need to categorize all of your expenses before you hand those books over to your CPA to file the income taxes. I can’t stress enough the importance of going through each month and categorizing every charge so it doesn’t build up and your CPA isn’t confused when they go to look at your books at the of the

So

Right well and I’m sure that is very costly and time and dollars when you’ve got to sit down and figure it out at the end of the year.

Yeah, yeah. And the other thing that we’re going through right now with a lot of our designers is 1099 filing. you know, that it goes along with taxes and, know, as a designer, you’re working with a lot of contractors and they are required. It’s required that you send them a 1099. so keeping track of their payments throughout the year and keeping track of who is eligible to receive a 1099 can reduce the stress of managing that. just, you know, the forms were actually due to be sent out to vendors today, January 31st. And so

It’s not a long period of time that you have. It’s really just January to compile all of those vendors and get the form sent out. So 1099s is another, it’s another tax monster that, know, business owners have to deal with.

Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about mindset. So what mindset shifts should an interior design business owner make around the financial management and the bookkeeping of their business? And how can they begin to view financials as really a tool for long-term success and their long-term strategy rather than just a tactical daily task?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can’t tell you how many designers I’ve spoken with over the years who they tell me they’re really good at the creative side, but they’re afraid of the financial side. And it’s just, it’s just such a common issue in the industry. And, you you’re not alone if you, if you’re out there and you’re experiencing that kind of fear, it is a complex business to run, like I’ve said over and over. But what’s, what’s really important is if you run the business right, interior design can be extremely profitable.

It’s, there’s a lot of opportunities to succeed if you’re running the business right. So keeping those books up to date allows you to analyze your numbers. It’s really, if you’re good at the bookkeeping or if you hire someone who’s good at the bookkeeping, it’s an opportunity to increase your profits because you can look at your, when you finish a project, if you have good books, you can look at that project P &L and see where you did well.

can see where there are opportunities to increase the profits or reduce expenses for that project. So we try to think of bookkeeping as an avenue for more opportunities to succeed in your business.

Well, I we certainly have a lot of designers that come to us and you know they might be a 10 out of 10 on financials and they might be a 2 out of 10 on financials and we still go over the same information. So everybody’s on the same page because it’s it’s just a muscle that you can build over time and really be more informed of what’s going on in your business. So you know at pro collective we have a financial master class that we offer about once a quarter.

And it’s amazing how many designers like continue to show up quarter after quarter on that because they’re just kind of chipping away at that muscle of really having a better understanding. And I’ve been in rooms with our boardroom members where all of a sudden a light bulb moment goes off during their VIP experience and they’re like, Oh my God, I got it. Like, I understand this now. So definitely a big fan of teaching people how to use their balance sheet and their PNL and to be getting that out often.

because it’s valuable tools for understanding what’s going on in your business.

Yeah, and I think you guys get such a big audience because there’s such a lack of education out there. And a lot of designers are not taught this information in interior design school. They leave design school, better designers, but they don’t know how to run a business. that’s not to speak for all designers, but a lot of them, they’re looking for guidance, they’re looking for support. And I think that’s why you guys have built up such a nice following.

Definitely. Okay, well, time management is definitely critical for, I mean, for everyone, but specifically designers, because they’ve got so much on their plates. So what are some practical tools or methods that you recommend to help track billable hours efficiently and accurately? I know I have been through so many different conversations with designers about all the different ways that they could track their time. You know, some of it’s manual, some of it’s on an app, some of it’s automated.

And it just is fine, know, kind of trying to help find that like practice and that habit that’s best for you. So what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, mean, time tracking is one of the biggest pain points that designers experience. And it’s a shame because hourly billing is a great way to make profit. you know, it’s not, there’s not a one size fits all billing structure. You know, we’ve seen a lot of successful designers billing flat fees. We’ve seen a lot of successful designers billing hourly. If you can bill hourly and you’re good at managing your time, it’s a great way to do it. But, you like you said, Aaron, it’s hard to find the time to actually sit down and log your hours.

There are a few softwares out there that we’ve seen designers use that we recommend. I Harvest is a great time tracking tool that a lot of our clients use. There’s an app, there’s a stopwatch, you can use it while you’re on a job site. But the other tip that I have is just really setting aside, maybe it’s 10 minutes a day or it’s 15 minutes a week on Friday to enter your time, but have…

Bye.

time set aside to enter those hours. You’re not gonna remember to do it unless you actually set time aside to

Right well and I’m a big fan too of time blocking and just having the blocks of time up on your calendar and you can just open up that block of time and type in what you did. But I mean there are so many different ways to go about it. It’s just finding that right way that you know you’re going to get done on a daily basis for sure.

And the other thing is like, don’t let the perfect or don’t let the yeah, what is it? Don’t let the perfect ruin the good or don’t let you

Yeah.

Yeah, so when you’re sitting down to enter your hours, like, it doesn’t matter if you spent 20 minutes or 25 minutes on a task, like just use one, you know, you’re wasting more time thinking about how much time you spent on those tasks to, you know, try to save yourself time when you’re going to enter the.

Well, and it’s so important to be able to look at the end of the day or the, I guess, the end of the quarter or the end of the month of like the billable hours versus the non-billable hours. Like, okay, let’s look at these non-billable hours and see like, is, there, there are efficiencies that are lacking or there are processes that need to happen in the business? Was there just a lot of errors, which is also like probably a process driven thing. And then also being to able to help understand when you can bring in the time billing.

not just the time billing, the time tracking of your business, really being able to start seeing the trends of the utilization and the efficiency of your team members. So then you can see what areas of your business might have a little leak or a hole that needs plugging or, know, re-situated with some training and some processes.

Yeah, you nailed it. mean, it’s what we do for a lot of our designers is help them set goals for how much time they should be billing, how much time their employees should be billing, and then auditing those goals. Every month we do a time billing analysis report for our designers. we recommend every designer out there should do this, where they’re looking at what percentage of time they’re billing to clients, what percentage of time their employees are billing to clients.

You know, the goal that we set for a lot of designers is billing 80 % of project related time back to clients. And so, you you can incentivize employees to hit those thresholds, but it’s a pretty significant impact on your bottom line if you’re hitting at least 80 % of the time being billed out to clients.

So for interior designers, purchasing products for clients can be a complicated process, especially in the last several years of all the different shipping delays and just delays in general. So what are some of the most common pain points that interior designers face in this area and how they can really simplify or streamline it?

Yeah, I mean, this is a big one because purchasing is hard. it’s like I said before, these designers are essentially running a furniture store where they’re buying and selling product. there are so many steps that go into it. And the end client, a designer’s client, does not understand, it’s not intuitive how many steps go into managing the purchasing. We have a document that shows the individual steps that go into managing one custom item.

And it’s 106 steps, 106 possible steps to go into the per per thing of one custom item. It’s insane. so, you know, there’s, there’s a lot that goes into it because sometimes a vendor can charge as each item ships and maybe there’s five items on a purchase order. And so you’ve got, and then they’re charging a deposit and then a balance due. So there’s like, you know, 10 charges on this one order.

And then one item comes in damaged and one item is delayed and you need to reselect that item. It’s just a perfect storm. There are so many issues with purchasing. So it’s really, really important to status and track these orders properly. So everyone has their own system of how they do that. Again, there’s a lot of good order status and order tracking software out there that designers can use, but

staying on top of it and being proactive with how you manage those orders is so key. mean, don’t wait for the vendor to come to you to tell you that something’s off. Follow up with the vendors regularly to make sure that lead times haven’t changed, to make sure that everything is still on track with that order so that way when something does go wrong, you know of it right away and you can react accordingly.

So speaking of vendors, strong relationships with our vendors is crucial to navigating the purchasing process, right? So what are some areas of advice that you could share for building and maintaining the relationships with your vendors?

Yeah, I I think it’s a mindset at the end of the day. You know, it’s how you treat them as people and treating them as partners as opposed to just suppliers is really how a designer should be thinking about their relationships with their vendors. Because without the vendor, without that partnership with your vendor, there is no finished product. You’re not delivering the project to your client. And being loyal to vendors is key, too. Once you find vendors that are good, that deliver

Good product, they have good customer service. Your clients are happy with the product. Be loyal to them, go back to them. I it can help you get better pricing if you get into better tiers with vendors, obviously, but it just helps with the relationship overall and can help you down

And I mean, I think the vendors are also just they’re part of the heartbeat of the industry, right? So if you’re ever looking to hire, they’re usually probably a good person to run that job description by and see if they know of anybody that’s interested in being hired as well. that’s another great resource. OK, so with all the different fluctuating costs and unexpected delays that we have to deal with on a daily basis, how can designers best manage budgets?

and client expectations so that they’re ensuring that they don’t go over budget, but they’re still delivering the quality service that their clients expect.

Yeah, I mean, think this is where this is where communication skills come in. So so huge for designers is having that conversation with the client up front. I’m sure you agree. mean, any relationship, any new partnership that you guys have, you want to talk to them up front and just lay out what the expectations are. This is you know, this is what we’re planning to do with you. But let them know up front that the nature of this business is that things change, you know, keeping keeping your budgets.

flexible. A lot of designers find that’s the best way to do it because it’s, you you give them a range, know, your end client needs to know what they’re expecting to pay, but just letting them know, you know, we’ve seen in our experience that these costs can increase by X percent. know, setting that expectation upfront that it’s a fluid budget, that it’s not set in stone can help down the line. And I’m sure you’ve seen experiences or examples like that too.

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so great. Many designers wear multiple hats. I mean, we I hear it all day long in our VIP experiences. Multiple hats are their husbands, wives, mothers, fathers. They’re the CEO. They’re also the main salesperson. They’re also the main designer. There’s a lot of different hats that they wear. The outsourcing certainly can be a game changer, especially in a small business. So what are some of the areas of

An interior design business that designers should could or should consider outsourcing to kind of gain an edge in the industry.

Yeah, I mean, like you said, a designer has a limited number of hours in their day, and especially those that are billing their time to their clients. are hours are precious. You know, every minute that you have available to you is a potential billable minute to your client. spending those hours and those minutes on mundane administrative low hourly billable tasks is not the best use of time for a business owner. So

I think a lot of designers have success when they realize what they’re good at and they realize what they’re not so good at and they delegate those tasks that they’re not so good at to someone else. Outsourcing, bookkeeping, accounting, procurement, social media management, marketing, consulting, obviously, a lot of those are things that a business owner either isn’t great at or an interior designer isn’t great at or doesn’t want to spend their time doing. obviously, I don’t mean

this to be self-fulfilling because we are an outsourced purchasing manager. So it’s easy for me to say. But with that, we see the direct results of how we’ve helped designers over the years refocus their time and energy on design and what they love. it helps, honestly, helps the overall quality of life if you’re focusing on what you love to be doing. And managing client relationships is another big thing that designers find they don’t have the time to do because they’re doing the bookkeeping or they’re

following up with a vendor and managing a damage claim, they can’t give enough love to their clients. it’s very much a referral-based business. if you can’t give love to your clients, they’re not going to speak highly of you to someone else who you could get the potential job from.

Right well I mean if you think about it this way if you let’s say you’re an interior designer and your rates $200 an hour. You could be spending $200 an hour run to the bank or to run you know things back to the design center or you could be paying somebody that’s maybe. 25 $30 an hour to be doing some of those tasks and you could actually be charging for their time as well so it’s gonna help you make money.

Either way, always when I start thinking about things that I need to get off of my plate to, you know, step into the next phase of where I need to be and where my team can help is really looking at the things that I don’t like that I’m not good at. That’s a pretty easy list. And then the things that maybe I like, but someone else can do better is definitely or, you know, I like them, but I’m not necessarily good at them.

That’s a great place to start for sure and trying to figure out where to outsource.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And just really quickly, one of the keys that you mentioned there is when you do outsource tasks to someone, make sure you’re billing a designer is most successful when they build those tasks back to their client. So, you know, if you’re outsourcing procurement, you would have billed your client for the procurement time if you were doing it or if your employer was doing it. So if you’re outsourcing it to someone else, make sure that you’re billing that to your client as well.

And it’s how you cover the cost of it. Ideally, you’re billing your client at a lot higher rate than what you’re paying the outsourced company to do the work. So you’re making a profit.

On the topic of outsourcing, while that can be a significant investment in the time and dollars, what kind of return on investment should designers expect from delegating certain tasks or responsibilities to external experts?

Mm-hmm

Yeah, I mean, on average for designers, I can speak to our own outsourced services. mean, on average, a client sees an increase of 15 to 25 percent in net income after year one by outsourcing, bookkeeping and procurement, especially if they are billing that time back to the client. Like I said, that’s that’s the key to increasing, increasing profit there. But there is so many unquantifiable.

returns by outsourcing too. And most of it is the time savings that you’re getting as a business owner. You’re clearing your head space. You’re no longer stuck in the weeds of the administrative work. You’re able to actually think about big picture business related tasks. You can take on an extra project. You can scale and grow the business. So there’s a lot that you can benefit by getting some of those tasks off of your plate.

Well, and when it comes to outsourcing, it really can be such a gamut, right? It can be the bookkeeping, the procurement. It also could be a much larger role of like a fractional C level person, like a fractional CFO or a fractional CMO. So there, I mean, there is a huge gamut of different people that have those strengths and the time to do it and are probably a lot better at it than the designers so that they can get back to running the design business and really doing that.

that beautiful work that they’re here for.

Yeah, without a doubt. I think, you know, hiring employees and growing your internal business is great, but it’s expensive. And there are certain roles that you want to fill internally, that you want to hire an employee for. But there are also certain roles that it just, you can get similar quality and a similar result at a lot lower cost by outsourcing it. So there’s a big cost savings to it and typically a higher ROI by outsourcing certain tasks, like you said.

for better ol-

So this is a little bit of a random question that just popped in my head. know that designers are very particular about how they like things done. most come from the mold of a perfectionist or a recovering perfectionist. What are some of the ways that you help them through those fears of when they’re deciding to work with you?

Yeah, I mean, most designers, like you said, are they’re perfectionists. mean, there’s a

want it done right and they know who they’re serving and so yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, in a lot of ways, we’re the same way where you kind of have to be a perfectionist to manage the books and manage the purchasing because we honestly believe that anything less than 100 % accuracy on on books on bookkeeping and on purchasing is not acceptable. you know, but but at the same time, it is a high paced industry. So designers speed is really important.

you know, getting an order placed quickly is really important because there are lead times that you’re up against. are deadlines for projects. There are installation dates that you need to meet. So you sometimes have to say, is 98 % better than 100 % if it’s happening, you know, exponentially faster than what the 100 % would have been. You know, for everyone, that’s a different, it’s a different calculus.

If you can get 100 % accuracy with the top speed, which is what we aim for, then that’s great. But you know yourself best and sometimes, know, sometimes sacrificing a small level of quality to make sure that speed is as high as it can be. It’s hard to accept that, but it’s important sometimes to do.

Yeah, my one of my business coaches always says like speed to lead is what you always need to have top of mind whether it’s a lead coming in a brand new person coming in or someone that’s ready to purchase and and say yes, like I’m ready. I’m ready for that. So if I’m ready for the whole room, let’s do it. It’s so important. So what are some of the common mistakes designers make when outsourcing and how can they avoid those so that when they’re outsourcing they really

have found a successful partnership in that.

Yeah, I mean, you similar to what I said earlier about how you have to treat vendor relationships as as partnerships. Any outsourced company that you’re working with is technically a vendor, you know, and and they’re also a partner of yours. So obviously treating them with respect and having an open channel of communication with them is going to be so important. mean, we’ve dealt with designers again, we’ve been doing this for 25 years, so we’ve dealt with the best designers and we’ve dealt with the work designers and.

the worst relationships that we’ve had are the ones that don’t treat us with respect. know, we are, our goal is to help our clients. Like at the end of the day, we’re a referral based business too. And most outsource companies, you know, they want to help their clients succeed. And so if they’re not being treated with respect, that’s just not going to create, you know, a positive relationship there. So I think having that open channel of communication is, super important. And also having some flexibility when you’re outsourcing to it, to a company,

You have your own set ways of doing things. Everyone is stuck in their ways. Everyone likes how they’re doing things. But clearly, if you’ve made the decision to outsource to someone, it means that you’re looking to improve. So take their advice into account. They may have a better way of doing things. And you don’t have to take all of their advice into account. But be flexible. Be open to their suggestions. Because at the end of the day, that’s why you’re outsourcing. That’s why you’re hiring someone else to help with these tasks. Because they’re experts in that field.

Yeah, and I think, you know, for the longest time, I had a sticky note on my computer screen that said delegate the outcome, not the task to remind myself that like, listen, you don’t have to prepackage every project perfectly for somebody as long as you know what it is and it’s that the outcome that you want. And obviously there’s quality standards around it. They’re going to probably have a more efficient, better way, smarter way of going about it than maybe what you originally had planned. So.

I think that’s key too when it comes to outsourcing.

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I just think the best leaders out there are ones who know their own shortcomings, their own weaknesses, and they’re willing to admit that they need help on certain things. Like nobody is an expert in every area. you know, finding out what you’re not an expert at and finding people who are experts in that field, that’s how you succeed.

Okay, so still on the topic of outsourcing, how can outsourcing help interior designers scale their businesses and take on more projects without compromising that quality, the quality that they’re producing or their personal time even. I know I’ve got a lot of designers that come through our programs that are especially their working moms, they’re feeling really guilty about the amount of time they’re having to spend to build their business and the lack of time that they’re getting with their kids at that moment.

And that’s just one version of the guilt factor that can happen of not having enough personal time for the rest of their life as well.

Yeah, I mean, again, so many designers I speak with where they are trying to free up time so they can focus on their business, but also, you know, maybe they just had a kid or they have, you know, they have personal things that they want to focus on or their mother or father is sick and they need to help take care of them. You know, everyone has something in their personal life and nobody has enough time in their personal life to focus on, focus on what they what they need to. So.

Again, outsourcing can help you free up time for your business, but also free up mental capacity and personal time to focus on at the end of the day what truly matters to you. But you also talked about scaling your business and how outsourcing can help with that. And I think that’s one of the biggest benefits to getting things off of your plate is that you can now take on a new project. So you as a business owner should never be in a position where you have to turn away a good project. If something comes along that

Is going to help you you should have the capacity to take that project on that’s honestly that’s what we do is we help create capacity for designers. There’s a designer that I work with that I’ve been working with for 10 years and when we started working with her she was doing 300,000 in annual revenue and this past year she did 10 million in annual revenue so you know just she realized.

I don’t need to be doing the administrative tasks. She outsourced it. She outsources other things too. She outsources marketing, she outsources all sorts of other tasks, but it allowed her to become a rock star in the client relationship, client management area of her business. once you get one or two big projects, then there’s a waterfall and you start to get the other big ones. But having that space available to you is key to help scale.

Love that. I love that. think outsourcing too can also help the owner of the business really with that space and time to become the CEO of their business, right? So, you know, if you can get out of those daily tasks or those tactical admin tasks or the bookkeeping tasks, it also allows you to free up some time to think, like have some thinking time, be able to work.

on your business on a weekly basis instead of just in your business. Any billable time, I am all about that and that needs to be happening. But also if you want to always come back to your bigger vision of what you’re building, you’ve got to be able to work towards that on a daily basis and not just be in the daily grind all the time. So yeah, big fan.

I think we’re off.

It’s great advice and I think we’re all guilty of that. I have to remind myself daily to get out of the weeds because I could put my head down for eight hours in a day and I could just go to town and I wouldn’t, I would get my tasks completed, but nothing big picture would get completed. And, you know, so many business owners are in the same exact boat where you have so much on your plate and you could sit down for 12 hours in a day and not even finish all of those tasks.

But you need to set time aside to think about big picture your business and make, like you said, those CEO level decisions. outsourcing is a great way to free up time to make those kind of thoughts and decisions.

Well, and was having a conversation with my business coach today. I was a little in the weeds this morning, if you will. And we were talking about, you know, when you have those goals that are set for the year or for the quarter and you have those initiatives that you’re working towards that you can be chipping away off on a daily basis, weekly basis, even if it’s just a little bit of time each week that you’re chipping towards those. That’s the framework that you can come back to when an opportunity comes in saying,

Oh, heck yes, like I’m ready. Like we’re going to take that because we know it. It jives with these goals and initiatives that we’re working towards for the business for the year. Or you can go, oh, that’s awesome. And I want to learn more about it. And now is not the right time. Or I know that we could start that in the second quarter or maybe the last half of the year. And so that’s when getting out of the busyness and the chaos.

It’s helpful to actually be able to have those goals really set in place and go, you know what this actually is. I can see that this is going to help me towards my bigger vision of what I’m building here. And, and that’s not to say that you’ve got to scale your business from zero to a zillion in five seconds. Not everybody wants to have, a big company. You want to keep it small and still make a really great net profit. That’s totally possible.

Whereas other people really want to build out the teams and the extra locations and all of those things. So there’s no wrong answer, but you’ve got to be able to take that time to think about your business. And that’s one of my favorite things about our VIP experience is that we set you down and you’ve got to think on your business. We got to talk about the vision. We got to talk about why you’re here and what your goals really are. So then we can work backwards and really making that business what.

it can become to feel that lifestyle that you’re seeking. So really.

as much.

It’s a very personal decision. We don’t know, you and I don’t know where someone is at in their life, whether they want to grow their business or what they want to grow their business to. But I think it’s pretty universal. Everyone wants to be as profitable as possible, whether you’re a small business or a large business. finding the time to focus on the business is so important. And it’s funny, I was talking to my wife about this yesterday, actually, just like with time management, how with every day you have

big daunting tasks and then you’ve got a million small little tasks. And I always try to get the million small little tasks done before attacking the big daunting task. But the big daunting task is then hanging over my head all day. And so we were talking about it like, why don’t we just do that task first? It’s more important anyways, why don’t we get that task done first and then focus on the smaller million tasks. it’s because I’m addicted to my email and I wanna keep my email down.

I don’t what it is, but…

But I think a lot of people struggle with that. It’s finding the time to focus on that big task and getting it done first.

I think so too. Well, one of our favorite books here at Pearl Collective is Eat the Frog and that means you do those big harder things first when you’re fresh in the morning and just you can work, you have more time to work through them, right? And it’s easy to keep putting it off and putting it off and usually if you’re putting it off then that means like, you either don’t have the buy-in for the project or you don’t have the process for the project, right? And so what I try to do is do the big things first and then,

Only like allow for an hour of however many of the smaller tasks that I can fit into an hour. But I mean, that’s on a perfect day. I have days that it’s just all over the board and I have days that I’m time blocked out and I’m like, I’m totally kicking butt and so I understand. I was talking to my daughter about this the other day too. She’s a freshman in high school and I’ve been super impressed with how she’s managed her grades and like, you know, having more of a social life and she’s also an athlete and

And she’s getting ready to try out for her first high school sport. She’s been playing club sports this fall. And it was interesting because I was like, like, do you, at first she was like, mom, I don’t even have time for a boyfriend. So I’m like, awesome. Like this is good news. But then I was like, okay, so you’re talking about taking some AP classes next year and you’re going to be an athlete, like totally doable. want you to be pushed in all of those directions, but I also don’t want it to like.

Don’t sign up for too much either. And so we were having this really healthy conversation about it because she had a friend that was like, I’m doing all of the sports and I’m taking all the AP classes. And she’s like, that doesn’t even sound like fun or doable. And I’m like, well, it’s doable, but maybe you won’t grow quite as much at the, at the rate that you’re growing now. So, um, yeah.

Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Freshman year of high school. That’s a tough age to have.

It’s been good so far, you know, TBD, we’ll see.

Yeah.

I’ve got my first kid on the way, my first baby is due.

Congratulations Cory. They’re the best hardest thing I’ve ever done and my kids are 11 and 14 and very fun when they like figure what they’re good at and what they’re about and my son likes to golf and play football. My daughter plays soccer and they both like to ski so those are like activities like we like to do but we just also crack each other up and it’s fun to see personalities starting to come too.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, I mean, it’s funny, like a lot of the psychological things that we’re talking about today for a business owner, I feel like it’s going to apply to parenthood too. It’s just like they’re common life principles and there’s a lot of crossover.

I think it becomes very black and white when you’ve got a kiddo that you’re wanting to spend time with care for provider for right is your time becomes very I like to live in a gray world because I’m happier that way. But when it comes to that time it’s like I don’t want it seeping into you know all of it seeping into each other. It does some weekends it does some nights. But I think the more that you can have a plan in place to outsource

delegate, have some time blocking practices that you can really abide by and go, okay, these are the boundaries of my week and these are the boundaries of what I can do in an evening before I’m just ready to crash, you know, in a morning before I’m actually really able to talk to anyone. What’s required to get everybody out the door. So I’m super excited for you on that front. So Corey, as we finish out here,

I appreciate it. Thank you.

we always like to ask our guests to share three takeaways for our listeners. So they kind of have something they can take back to their business, their life, after they’ve listened to this and make happen.

Yeah, I think number one is that interior design is a very complicated, complex business to run. you’re not alone if you think that your business is hard to run because every designer is struggling with that. But if done properly can be a very profitable business. So, you know, for any designer out there listening, like you’re in a good industry. It’s there’s there’s a lot of money to be had. It’s a growing industry.

people are focusing on home furnishings and there’s a lot of money to be had. So if you can figure out the business side of it, you can really succeed and you can really grow. That’s number one. And I think number two, we talked a lot about this today. Finding the right partners for your business is key. know, acknowledging once you get to a certain size for your firm, acknowledging that you can’t do it all on your own. And so whether that be vendors, clients,

or like again, like we talked about a lot, outsourced solutions, finding those partnerships and nourishing those partnerships is key to success.

Love that.

Yeah, and I mean, the third one, I would say, again, we talked about this, but taking time out of your day, getting out of the weeds and just focusing on running the business, on the overall business operations, know, admire what you’ve accomplished. know, take a step back and look at what you’ve grown and, you know, admire and acknowledge the successes that you’ve had.

but also identify opportunities to grow. And the only way to do that is to actually look at and reflect on what you’ve done. If your head is down all day and you’re just knocking things out, there’s no time to reflect. And that’s really important as a business owner.

Agreed well Cory thank you so much for taking time out today to be with us and I know I certainly have some thoughts in my head about like things that I need to delegate and outsource more even on our business but excited to continue to work with you and and learn more about your business in the future.

Yeah, my pleasure. So great to be with you, Aaron. And I appreciate you taking the time. I appreciate these questions. Very thought provoking for myself too, even just talking through things today. I I have a different perspective on doing business, but yeah, I can’t thank you enough for having me on. I really appreciate it.