You’re not burnt out because you’re lazy. Or disorganized. Or “just bad at business.” You’re burnt out because you’ve been running a business model that was never built to scale. You were trained to design beautiful spaces. No one showed you how to lead a team, price for profit, or build a business that works even when you’re not there.
So now you’re:
- Chasing clients instead of them coming to you
- Managing staff instead of trusting them to be self-sufficient
- Doing administrative work instead of the work that fuels your passion
- Striving to grow but spending too much time stuck in the weeds
But there’s good news: it’s not your fault! But it is your responsibility to fix it, and in this article, we’ll show you how.
What is a business model?
To fix something, you first have to understand what it is. A business plan is your company’s overall plan for making money, providing value, what you offer and to whom, and what it will cost to run the business. That encompasses pretty much every aspect of your business, which means the problems can stem from just about anywhere. Some common issues are a vague target audience, unrealistic financial projections, a weak value proposition, poorly defined team roles, and a lack of focused direction.
You don’t need to burn it down
Let’s be clear: you don’t need to start from scratch. There is probably already a lot going right with your business model. Most likely, your reputation is strong, your offerings are appealing, and your team is full of great people (at least, hopefully these things are true!). And it’s almost a given that you have the drive and the passion to build an amazing business, you just don’t know how to do it. So instead of starting over, improve what you already have.
Change your mindset
Sometimes a mindset shift is necessary. The truth is, if you’ve established your business and it’s going pretty well, you’ve moved beyond being a dabbler or just a busy designer. You’re a CEO! So believe in it!
It’s time to stop thinking of your business as a scrappy upstart that has to clamber at every opportunity. You’re not starting out anymore. But you do feel stuck, probably because your business wasn’t built to scale. When you’re the bottleneck, you can only handle so many projects at once! So let’s try to fix that broken business model, so you can stop blaming yourself.
The likely culprits
Over and over again, we see the same common problems crop up in design businesses. Be honest with yourself—how many of these are you guilty of?
Your prices are too low
If you run a business, and there are others in your field, you’re hyper-aware of your prices and how they compare to the competition. This can lead to trying to compete on price, which means that you may lower your prices until they’re unsustainable. When we see this, it usually stems from a lack of confidence. Many business leaders fear having to defend their higher prices, even though there are endless valid justifications. You may think you need to price based on what you think the market will pay, instead of pricing to create a profit for your business. But when you attract the right clients, they are willing (happy, even!) to pay you what you’re worth.
You have to micromanage your team
Your team is probably made up of great people, but they might not be great employees (yet). Employees should be able to be self-sufficient and carry out their tasks without asking for your approval or input at every step. You shouldn’t have to make every decision for them. However, if that is the case, it might not be their own fault. Instead, you may need to change how you lead. If you’ve made yourself the bottleneck, it’s time to reassess how you’re holding back your team. Don’t think you have this problem? Ask yourself: If I didn’t show up for two weeks, could the business still run?
Growing the work before the systems
When you’re starting your business, it’s exciting, and you feel scrappy and agile. Anything goes, as long as the job gets done. Unfortunately, this means that systems and standards fall by the wayside in favor of what has to be done in the moment. The whole time, you probably told yourself that you would write down your processes and set up repeatable systems once you had the free time to do so. The thing is, that free time rarely comes. That means the systems never get created, and every project has to be started from scratch. As time goes on, you lose more and more hours to a disorganized backend.
You’re still doing administrative work
If you’re fielding phone calls, filling out spreadsheets, and keeping track of expenses, you need to change that! As the owner and principal designer, your billable hours should be higher than most or all of your other employees. You’re the expert who gets called in to add their magical touch to the project that your team worked on. That means it’s a massive waste of your time and your company’s potential profits to have you working on admin tasks. Instead, hire employees or freelancers who are better suited to do these tedious—but necessary—tasks.
Be a real leader
If you don’t know how to lead a team, that’s okay. Not everyone is a born leader. But you can become one! These are the signs that you need to level up your leadership skills:
- Employees wait for permission to act
- They bring problems to your attention, but don’t offer solutions
- You have to answer questions, over and over again
If your employees are waiting for permission, that means you’ve made yourself a bottleneck. A lot of interior design firms have this problem. Just think about how many designers put their names on the sign—sometimes that means the buck can stop at you. Empower your team to make decisions. Make it clear what kinds of decisions need to be made by you, and what decisions can be made by team members. Perhaps there is a purchasing level that requires your sign-off, but anything under that amount does not require approval. Give your team the tools and the freedom to do what they need to do to get through their day-to-day without your input.
A leader should be a visionary or an integrator, either providing the general vision and direction of the business or putting those ideas into action. You can be one or the other, or both, but you shouldn’t be neither. Don’t be a roadblock to progress!
We understand that it’s hard to let go of responsibility. It can be difficult to trust that the work will get done and get done right. But if you create a system that lets you hand off work effectively to a team that you trust, then you’ll learn the joys of letting go!
Make it clear what you do, and for whom
When starting out, many designers want to do everything for everyone. But this is simply unrealistic. When there are dozens of designers to choose from, the designer who does a little bit of everything and speaks to everyone is not going to stand out. For something as personal as design, the most successful designers are often the ones who find a niche. That could be in a specific design style or a certain income bracket of clients, for example. By differentiating, you’ll stand out. But you’ll also have a more enjoyable experience running your business if you have a clear vision about what you do and who you want to buy it.
Don’t worry about turning clients away. It can feel bad to turn down business or appear unattractive to a potential client, but working with a non-ideal client can be bad for your business. Don’t force yourself to work on a project that doesn’t do your business (or your mental state) any favors. In fact, you probably will have fewer clients after narrowing your audience. But because you’ll attract the clients that see your value, you’ll be making more profit than you were before.
How? By only working with ideal clients, you’ll spend less time with miscommunication, redoing work, and venting! Imagine a project that finally goes off without a hitch.
Don’t know how to filter out undesirable clients? Read our guide on how to identify your ideal clients and build a profile for them.
Having a clear message makes it easier for potential clients to find you, and for you and your team to communicate the value you provide to them.
It’s not you—it’s your business model. But with a few careful considerations, you can fix your model without starting from scratch. Start acting like the CEO of an established business that’s built to scale, instead of an overworked interior designer. Let Pearl Collective help you turn your business into one that lets you take a vacation without missing a beat.