What’s the secret to transforming a chaotic design project into a streamlined, stress-free experience for everyone involved? If you’ve ever struggled with managing client expectations, juggling trades, or keeping projects on schedule and on budget, this episode is packed with practical wisdom you won’t want to miss. In this conversation, Erin Weir sits down with Kimberly Graff, Chief Operations Officer of Charbonneau Interiors to talk about the systems, tools, and mindset shifts that have helped her take control of her projects and create better outcomes for her clients and for herself. Kimberly opens up about her journey of learning how critical project management is to the design process, sharing lessons learned from difficult experiences and the changes she’s made to avoid those pitfalls in the future. In this episode, you'll learn about the essential role of clear communication and documentation in keeping projects on track. Kimberly shares how she now uses a dedicated project management software to handle everything from schedules to budgets to client communication, saying, “If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.” Erin and Kimberly also discuss the importance of onboarding processes, client education, and setting boundaries from the very beginning of a project. You’ll also hear about: How Kimberly creates a project roadmap to set expectations with clients. The tools and tech she uses to stay organized. Strategies for managing trades and subcontractors effectively. Why tracking time and expenses is key, even if you’re not billing hourly. What Kimberly wishes more designers knew about project management. And the one piece of advice she’d give any designer who wants to elevate their client experience. Whether you’re a solo designer wearing all the hats or part of a larger firm, this episode is a must-listen for anyone ready to bring more structure, clarity, and professionalism to their projects. If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s13e5-shownotes Mentioned in this Episode Kimberly mentioned a number of software applications that she uses at Charbonneau Interiors: Asana (project management) Harvest (time tracking) Forecast (project management) Quickbooks (accounting) Slack (instant messaging) Google Sheets (spreadsheets) BambooHR (human resources) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWu4nqHZx9U Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to Show Transcript Well, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast, Kimberly. I'm so excited to have you here today. Thank you for having me. I'm going to go ahead and just let you introduce yourself. I know that we've been friends for a long time. You were one of our OG boardroom members back in the day. But please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do. I am the COO at Charbonneau Interiors and on a daily basis my hands are involved in just all sorts of areas of the business. So I mean from human resources to finance to sales to even connecting with the clients and giving them updates and sharing installation information with my team and chatting with vendors and subcontractors. So a little bit of everything. A track of all trades. And I also want to mention that, you know, there's a lot of different design companies that they aren't quite sure how like remote work can work for an interior design company. And your company, Charbonneau Interiors is in Texas and you actually live in Louisiana. That's how that works for you guys. Craig, yeah. So I think that the desire to want to make it work is most important. and I have a great connection. I'm always a text message away, a call away. All of our clients know that I'm in Louisiana running things. But I have a great support team on the ground in Texas. quite a large team there to support the clients. And I'm there to guide the team members through the day-to-day operations just via Zoom, via text message, via call. So it works. Before Zoom, we would FaceTime all the time. Awesome. Well, I'm glad that that has worked out so well for you and you do go to Texas. Yes, I go to Texas several times a year just when the business demands and also to get a chance to connect with the clients in person. Love that. Love that. Okay. So you talked about a little bit about what you do on a daily basis as COO. And how does project management play into those responsibilities? Because that's kind of where I want to dive into today is talking about project management. Absolutely. Well, like I said, on a daily basis, I'm connecting with our clients, our team, subcontractors, vendors, builders, and potential clients. I am the first point of contact for the potential clients that are going to be working with our firm. And I do actually work closely with them, not all of them, but some of them throughout the design process. A large Part of our portfolio is repeat clients. So I do have strong established relationships with many of them. And I'm connecting with them several times a day on various things that we're working on for them. So keeping them informed of changes, updates, even discussing dreams that they might have for areas that maybe we're not working on just yet. And then spending a lot of time on the phone with my team, helping them to troubleshoot, to navigate solutions, to different roadblocks that we might be having, and then working on a great deal of planning. And also heavily depending on my accounting support team to help me with researching reports so that way I can help manage cash flow for the company. So, yeah. extremely important piece of it. Okay, so Charbonneau Interiors is known for its signature Charbonneau Care approach. So how does this philosophy influence your project management style? And tell us a little bit about what Charbonneau Care means. So our tagline is actually connecting who you are to how you live. And what that means is really taking into consideration how the client lives their life and making sure that we are doing our best to meet them where they are. But as far as Charbonneau Care, I think that oftentimes in renovation projects and new construction, even small-scale design projects, there gets to be a level of fatigue with many of the clients and just letting them know that we're there for them to guide them through the process as well as understand that there will likely be some rocky parts along the way, but letting them know that they're that we are there to navigate the best solution. And we couldn't do that without the team's support. And so to help manage keeping tabs on how the team is feeling, the management team actually conducts regular team check-ins so that we can make sure that we are keeping tabs on not maxing out the team. So just making sure that the team is healthy so that way they can truly be the backbone and the support system that the clients need. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, let's talk a little bit about the fundamentals of project management for running an interior design business, right? Gosh, think that in our industry, there's so, or just an industry of rock stars, there's so many details and specifications and problem solving that has to happen. And I think so many people on the outside that may be hiring an interior designer have no idea how much work goes into making sure that a project really looks and feels the way it needs to feel. So what are some of the key elements of an effective project management system that you see for an interior design business? I would say it would have to have a collaborative function or feature. It would have to have some planning elements. It also must include some type of mapping that acts as kind of a guide to help you stay on track if you lose kind of where you are in the process along the way. It should be detailed, organized, and support its unique users. I don't necessarily believe that there's a one size fits all system for every single business. I think that every design business member performs similar tasks to support and carry out design projects, but not necessarily in the same order or in the same way. So I think that using different applications and software so it feels that it's supporting. the project management system within that specific organization and giving direction to its users in terms of where to head next. Okay, love that. So what tools or software do you use to keep projects on track and how do they help you improve efficiency? Because I know that you are, you have that known for the efficiency that comes out with your team. So many, so many species of software. We use Asana Harvest. I recently added Forecast to Harvest. QuickBooks, Slack, Goolsheets, and Bamboo. Okay. Okay. So, can you talk to me a little bit about Asana and why that is your project management software of choice? Yes, Asana is the grand central station of everything that we do. Everything starts there. It's the software that essentially gives that direction. It gives that guide. It maps out the stages in the process. So that way our entire team knows what comes next. We take advantage of custom fields as well as the automations that Asana offers. And it really kind of, yeah, gives the guide for the team so that they know where to go next. Love that. And then how do you help your team balance their creative vision with all the logistics? my gosh. This is such a funny question to me. Because it's a painful reality. I don't think that there's a true balance. think that it's a give and a take. I think that with some projects, you can definitely be more structured and kind of follow the plan to a T. And there's other projects that have to be more fluid. think that being realistic,