Your firm has achieved financial success, and externally, your brand appears polished. But something is missing. Yes, your firm has been published, recognized as excelling in your field, and you’re busy with a steady flow of clients. But internally, your structure feels disorganized, and so, despite external success, you feel stressed. That stress likely comes from a lack of adequate systems and processes to create a smooth client journey.
How often do you feel that you are one missed email away from disaster? Does your firm have revenue of $1M+, but you lack “Time Freedom”? Do you find yourself working long hours, nights, and weekends trying to keep things on track? Are there times when you feel as if you are losing your excitement for and love of design? Your business’s backend is likely the cause, but it’s not beyond repair.
Symptom 1: Reactive response to repetitive problems
It is likely that certain mistakes or challenges occur repeatedly on projects. Imagine what would happen if you were proactive in identifying these and creating effective processes and procedures to address them. You would be less likely to find yourself repeating the same instructions or fixing the same mistakes on every project.
Identify problems that seem to come up repeatedly on projects. Include your team in identifying these problems and brainstorm how they might be avoided. Work with your team to create processes and procedures to address these problems. Essentially, processes describe the “what” and procedures explain the “how”. By identifying the problems and creating solutions with your team, everyone is a stakeholder, and it is more likely to ensure long-term success.
Be sure you have a client journey process. A lack of a standardized client onboarding and client journey process can lead to confusion, miscommunication, and inefficiencies, making it difficult to track tasks and deadlines. The root of most problems is miscommunication. If you have created an effective process for onboarding clients that follows them on their client journey, you (and your client) will have a more positive experience. In addition to the standardized “Client Journey”, be sure you and your team have created repeatable systems that others on the team besides you can manage. Without having a “well-oiled machine” in place, you will always be the bottleneck.
Symptom 2: Managing People, Not Systems
You may have a team of 3-10 people working for you who are helping to continue to grow the success of your company. But do you spend much of your day on those “quick questions” from your team? Ask yourself what the root cause of these regular interruptions is. What if you and your team had created documented processes that address the most common challenges and questions that come up? They can then switch from relying on your memory to referring to a documented process. And if they have contributed to the creation of those processes, all the better. Simply writing it down can help commit it to memory.
The solution, or shift, becomes moving from “managing” your team to “leading” them. A leader provides a clear structure that they can follow. That structure also becomes part of the onboarding for any new team members.
Symptom 3: Profit Leakage (Sharing Your Discounts)
Don’t be the designer offering your products or services for less. Make that decision and stick to it. Often, what leads to designers using “soft” pricing or sharing discounts is a lack of understanding of their own value. Set time aside to spend with someone who will be honest with you and help you understand the true value you provide for your clients. How long have you been in business? What new information, resources, tools, etc. have you added to your business in the past year? What is your unique selling proposition (USP)? These should get you started in clarifying the value you bring to every project and prospective project.
Develop your business savvy and create a profitable business model. Then, eliminate any “people pleaser” mindset. That mindset will prevent you from enforcing a profitable business model. Instead of chasing down every possible client, put more effort into attracting a lesser number of high-quality clients.
Clearly identify your ideal clients and be sure that is where you focus your marketing and who you are attracting. No matter how tempting, do not stray from working with your ideal clients. If they are truly ideal, and if you learn how to frame your value, they will respect and appreciate the opportunity to work with you.
Rather than discounting, upgrade your pricing strategy to reflect that of a “Design Leader”.
Moving from “Drowning Designer” to “Builder Boss”
The Pearl Collective has helped design firms achieve success and continue to grow for a number of years. As far as operational efficiency, we suggest a model that gets you out of the weeds without sacrificing creative control. This can create a much more efficient firm and will allow you to be a better leader and grow your business. Perhaps best of all, you’ll get your life back.
Delegation is a key factor in being able to grow your business. That can be a challenge for many designers who may have trouble giving up control. After all, it is your business, and you feel that you know it best. Then you may try delegating, become frustrated and complain that it’s just easier to do it yourself. But that may be because of the big mistakes with delegation: abdication and micromanagement.
You give team members a task or project to complete, but offer no guidance, support, or training. Then you wonder why it isn’t getting done, or not in the way that you envisioned. That is abdication–not delegation. At the other end of the spectrum is micromanagement. You follow up constantly and tell them exactly how to do each step. This creates a culture of employees constantly reaching out to you to answer a question.
Instead, our preferred approach allows you to:
- Set the vision: Provide guidance and set expectations. Make sure the team understands the expected outcome and can ask questions.
- Let the team execute: Now it’s time to step away. You set the vision and expectations, and now your team can handle the busy work. Stay out of the weeds!
- Perform the final creative polish: Add any final touches and provide feedback and corrections if necessary.
Why You Haven’t Fixed It Yet
Though many designers are aware that their business needs fixing, it is similar to starting a new exercise plan. They know they need to make changes, but… Barriers pop up, such as fear of failure, uncertainty about the “next big step”, exhaustion of trying to “reinvent the wheel,” and one of the most common: I just don’t have time.
If you wait until you “have time” or until you “feel ready,” you may be waiting until suddenly a crisis occurs. Wouldn’t you rather take the leap and address the problem before a crisis hits?
Scaling Without Chaos
Imagine achieving Financial Freedom and Time Freedom through a business that can deliver without you making every minor decision. Not only will it allow your business to keep growing, but you will also be creating a more sellable business for the future. The backend of your business does not have to be a mess. A disorganized backend is not just an administrative irritation; it’s a growth ceiling that keeps you too busy putting out fires to be the CEO of your own company.
Are you ready to become the CEO of your company? Follow the lead of other successful designers who became part of the Pearl Collective community and decided to take the leap and create financial freedom AND time freedom.
Take our Interior Design Survey or book a Discovery Call to identify your specific bottlenecks. Your future will thank you.