1154: WWLD: Leading the Business You’re Building Now

Welcome to a well-designed business.

My name is Luanne Igarra and I'm so glad you found this podcast.

Together with my husband Vince and our partner Bill, we have grown our company Windowworks

from the ground up.

So I know and I understand the challenges you face in running your interior design business.

I also know that your talent alone isn't enough to ensure your success.

So on this podcast, we talk about strategies and practical steps to help you grow your business.

But make no mistake about it.

We have our share of fun here too, mixed in with those aha moments that I love so much.

This isn't fluff, nobody has time for that.

Whether you are a new interior designer or a seasoned designer, I am here to help you

create and to manage the kind of interior design firm that you dream of.

It's straight talk and it's action.

Are you ready?

Let's get started.

Hi, welcome to a well-designed business.

Before we get started, I want to take a moment to frame where we are.

Hopefully you listen to the episode on Tuesday.

In the last episode, we talked about what actually makes your business harder than it needs

to be.

The things you have to stop doing, the habits, the patterns, the things we can't do.

Carry long past the point that they serve us.

If you didn't, it's good if it goes first, but it can go second, it doesn't matter.

The thing is, in the last week, before I sat down to write this episode, I kept getting

bombarded by things on Instagram about the Chinese zodiac, like just different posts

and stuff about how 2025 was the year of the snake.

And symbolically, the snake represents shedding, reflection, transformation, letting go of

what no longer fits.

And I thought, huh, that's just what we talked about in that other episode.

That's perfect.

And it made me think, well, what's 2026?

Well, my friend, it is the year of the Fire Horse.

Not just the horse, but the Fire Horse.

And I am so enthralled by this.

Okay, the horse is about forward motion, momentum, energy.

And the thing about the Fire Horse, in particular, is it adds intensity to already a horse's

momentum and energy.

So it brings intensity and drive.

And that also got me thinking.

Because here's the thing, momentum without direction, chaos, energy without leadership.

Well, that burns out fast.

So today's episode is not the traditional New Year kind of message about goals and resolutions.

It's about looking in the mirror and asking, what does the CEO version of me need to be

now?

If I want to leave this Fire Horse energy instead of being run over by it, because the question

isn't whether there will be motion this year, there will be.

The question is whether or whether or not are you going to direct it.

Okay, so that's what we're going to talk about.

Now, let's start with the first thing.

The CEO version of you has to do in a year like this.

And that is to understand that direction matters more than speed.

Because if you've got momentum, if you've got energy, if you've got opportunity, awesome,

love it.

That's great.

But fast in the wrong direction, not success.

It's a waste of precious, precious energy and is usually expensive.

Now, I want to tell you a quick story from one of our exciting Windows community members

because it captures this in a sentence.

We have this one member, Oliver, who after he worked closely with Vin, both one-on-one

with Vinny and his peers in the EW group, he reflected on his previously held ideas about

his business and success.

And one day, he stood up to our whole group and made this announcement.

And he said, Vin, I want to tell you what I learned.

He said, I learned, numbers are for vanity and profit is for sanity.

And of course, we all cracked up because it's a great line.

But then we all sat there and went, wow, that's so true, right?

It is the hard truth of running a business.

See because what he was actually saying was, you can chase gross revenue number all day

long.

You can build a business that looks impressive on paper.

You can drive volume.

You can post milestones.

You can say you did a million, two million, five million.

But if you don't understand the relationship between the projects you sell, the operational

expenses you carry, and the profit that's actually left over, you don't have direction.

You have speed only.

And my window treatment pros will immediately recognize the idea of chasing sale after

sale, closing deals at all costs, right?

Sometimes the detriment of our businesses, especially of you that are in exciting windows because

you hear Vin talk about it all the time, okay?

So I want to nudge my designers here that maybe aren't used to this message.

And you also, as a designer, might be thinking, that's not me.

I don't decide to take a project based solely on the gross revenue member, okay, probably

not.

That's my experience with most designers as well.

But how often do you take on a project because it's your dream aesthetic?

Because the clients are lovely.

Because it's a great builder or an awesome architect to work with.

Well, here's the hard truth.

Working on a fabulous project with a $100,000 budget or a $4 million budget, where you

are not earning a blended gross margin of 55 to 60% is a misuse of your time and resources.

And worse, it devalues what interior designers do in the marketplace, period and the sentence.

And I see it every single day.

And I know you do too.

You look at your projects, the clients, the beautiful spaces you have created and you feel

like you're winning.

But are you exhausted?

Are you stretched way too thin?

Your checkbook maybe doesn't reflect the blood, sweat and tears you've invested over

the years.

You're working harder and harder and somehow it's not translating into stability, security

or personal income.

If that's the case, then that's why I'm saying direction matters more than speed or the

sheer quantity of projects.

And here's another important point.

It doesn't matter, matter whether your goal is to build a company with a team of designers

and a support staff around you or whether you want to stay a solo operator, possibly with

1099s and subs around you.

A business of any size has to be profitable.

It has to move cash in a positive direction and enough of it has to be left over for you

as the owner, another period and the sentence, okay?

The key is defining what winning actually looks like beyond the gross number.

Because a company with thin profit and constant chaos is not, it's not good.

It's a stress machine and you know it, right?

You can absolutely grow a business and not improve your life.

People do it every day.

And I see it.

They build stressful, on-call 24-7, all the weight is on my shoulders, glorified jobs

for themselves, instead of businesses that create a lifestyle, that creates stability,

that create pride, joy and wealth.

All the things that are supposed to be the reward for being self-employed.

So let me ask you a question and I want you to answer it for yourself.

What is the point of your business?

What do you want it to do for you, your family, your team?

Because when you can answer that, now you have a filter for every decision that comes

your way.

And the reason I'm starting here is because if you don't define direction, then you get

a fire horse here like this.

You might be chasing a lot of things that you shouldn't be, okay?

Because every opportunity, every idea, every possible revenue stream, every request,

it's not all good, right?

And that's exactly how you end up moving fast, but still being stuck.

So once you know where you're going and why, here's the next problem that will show up.

Even smart people, even experienced business owners default to effort instead of filters.

And that's where we're going to talk about next.

Because once you get clear on direction, something else becomes easier to see.

You won't need more effort, but you will need better filters.

Because when energy is high, everything starts to feel important.

Everything feels urgent.

Everything feels like it needs your attention right now.

And it's an important nuance to understand.

I mean, you don't make a decision, yes or no, on anything?

That decision still gets made.

It just gets made for you.

You then become reactive.

Your day gets run by whatever shows up loudness.

And suddenly you're very busy, very tired, and not actually moving the business forward

in a meaningful way.

And I see it all the time, right?

One of the easiest ways that I can think of to explain this is with a design analogy.

Imagine you're putting together a specbook or a design proposal, and you put so much effort

into it.

You have spent hours.

Your team has you have, whoever, you know, the man in the moon has, it's a beautiful

layout.

That's pretty borders.

That's great graphics and beautiful fonts at every page looks like a work of art.

You know, if you didn't include in there the pendant height off the countertop, or you

didn't say what direction the tile is supposed to be, or if the fee structure or the timeline

isn't really clearly laid out in the proposal, what's all that effort worth, right?

You see in that analogy, you didn't lack effort.

You spent hours making it look just right, and it does.

But you lacked filters.

You didn't lack work ethic.

You put your head down and created something impressive.

But you missed the must be right details, and business works the same way.

I see business owners working incredibly hard, doing so much, putting an enormous effort.

But until you've stopped to ask the deeper questions, is this decision actually necessary?

Is this process supporting us?

Is this the best way to do this, or is it just the way I've always done it, okay?

One of the things that you'll always hear me, my team will verify, you'll always hear

me say it, whether it's exciting windows, windowworks, or LNN is, oh yeah, we have to revise

that system, or we have to re-document that process, oh my goodness, that just changed

everything.

Go pull that system out, click up, let's remake that, right?

Because I don't want to come to that problem again, right?

And it's not because the people are broken, right?

When we made that system, me, whoever else it involved, it worked.

There's a constant recognition of the evolution of things, and it's a constant recognition

of documenting it, right?

Because the people aren't the problem, the system is, and because working harder inside

a broken system is not noble.

It's like, what?

Okay?

And if we don't stop and change it and re-document it, you know, two weeks, two months, two years,

we're going to onboard somebody else, and we'll be like, oh yeah, we don't do it that

way anymore.

And tell everybody, no, no, no, no, no, that's too expensive, it's exhausting, and frankly

it's insanity, right?

And so this is where the CEO version of you starts to show up differently.

You start, stop asking, how do I get more done?

And you start asking, what actually deserves to be done?

You stop rewarding business and start rewarding effectiveness.

Because effort without filters doesn't create progress.

It creates chaos and exhaustion.

And once you have a direction and once you're making decisions through better filters,

there's another thing you have to get right.

If you only operate in bursts of intensity, none of this will last.

It's not sustainable, okay?

So everything you do, it has to be sustainable.

And that's where consistency comes in, all right?

Consistency is the counterbalance to intensity.

So the thing about momentum is, momentum is powerful, and momentum creates movement

and momentum creates opportunity.

But as I just said, momentum without consistency, it doesn't build the business.

It creates those spikes.

And if you want to build a business that lasts 10, 20, 30 years more, you cannot live in

intensity alone.

Now don't get me wrong, intensity has this place.

If you ask the bin man, he'll tell you, I am the definition of intensity, okay?

But consistency is what carries you.

And this is where we can get tripped up.

You'll have moments where you say, okay, I'm going to really focus all my finances or

now I'm going to get serious about the business.

And a week or two or three, maybe you do.

And you sit down with everything, you look at the numbers and you try and get it all at

once.

But what can you really understand in one intense sitting a few times a year?

This reminds me of something that happened at Lewand Live in 2019, Lisa Gilmore stood

up and told us about hitting rock bottom financially.

She literally raised her hand and told the story to the entire audience of 200 of us.

And she said, you know, she hit rock bottom and it wasn't because she wasn't talented.

But because she had not been consistently paying attention to profitability.

And coming out of that hard lesson, she committed to finance Fridays.

Not finance Friday, finance Fridays, okay?

Not big bursts of momentum, weekly, consistently showing up.

And at first it was work.

It wasn't easy and it wasn't perfect.

I'm sure one week she was trying to find out with the accountant or whoever, you know,

how to read a P&L, another week how to read the balance sheet, another week understanding

or cash flow, another week understanding profit margins, okay?

But the thing is that is how understanding is built, not in bursts in repetition.

And I'm going to link Lisa's episode in the show notes.

It's episode 575.

She was real, vulnerable and such a powerful reminder that we can do hard things.

It's not just true for finances.

It's true for any system in your business.

It's true in leadership.

It's true in team communication and decision making.

Consistency is what turns effort into mastery.

And this, I'm going to reminds me of a personal story that I'm going to share with you.

As you've been listening to any period of time, you know that I've been a runner since I'm 14 years old.

And thankfully I'm back to it finally just as a little update.

All right, now over the years, I've done everything from short races to a Sprint triathlon.

And in 2016, I ran a half marathon with my daughter, Christie.

But here's the interesting part.

Before that race, I had never once ever run 13 and a half miles in one run.

In fact, over all the years of 50 years of running, almost all of my runs have been between

three and five miles.

And I would tell you, the vast majority has been three miles.

And yet I ran a half marathon, finished it and I felt fine.

Even the next day, not because I suddenly became superhuman,

but because years of consistency built the foundation.

Right?

I just years and years and years.

And I just put three miles on top of three more miles, on top of three more miles,

on top of another mile and a half.

Not probably another three and then a mile and a half.

There's that math for you.

Okay, all right?

The years of consistency built the foundation.

Here's another big lesson that running has taught me.

Additional lesson.

The hardest part of running isn't the physical.

It's not.

It's the mental.

On almost every run, I have a moment, every single run.

I have a moment.

I shouldn't even say almost on every single run.

I have a moment where I think, this is hard.

I don't know if I'm going to keep going.

And over time, I have learned when that thought comes running through my brain,

I pause and I ask myself one simple question.

Is this physical or mental?

And after decades of running, I can tell you this.

I don't think there's been five times when it hasn't been mental.

Nothing is broken.

Nothing is injured.

It just feels hard.

And that distinction has served me so well in business.

Because when I recognize it's mental, I keep running.

Whether it's two miles, three miles, or 13 and a half miles that day.

And the thing is, business has these same moments.

Learning the numbers isn't exciting.

Checking and double-checking details aren't thrilling.

Revising systems and decisions for the 15th Kabillion time is tedious.

But it's not a sign that something's wrong.

You're not injured.

Your business isn't injured.

It's a sign that you're doing the work that actually produces results.

So when the business feels heavy or frustrating,

ask yourself the same question.

Is this an unmeatable problem?

Is this an unknowable challenge?

Is this actually beyond me?

Or does it just feel hard right now?

And do I not need to just put my head down and keep going?

Right?

That mental check-in is part of the consistency.

And consistency is what turns intensity into something sustainable.

When you rely on intensity, you burn out.

When you rely on consistency, you succeed.

And that's where the fire-horse energy needs grounding.

Okay?

Use the bursts of inspiration, use the motivation,

use the moments where you feel ready to move.

But anchor it in consistent practices.

Because a business that only performs well once in a while,

it's not a business.

That's what we call gambling.

Okay?

And a business that supports your life, your family, your team,

year after year is not built on heroic moments.

It's built on boring, consistency done well.

And here's where all of this stops being about tactics

and starts being about leadership.

Because consistency isn't just about what you do,

right?

The doing of what you do.

It's about how you show up, too.

It's about the tone you set, the reactions you choose,

the standards you hold when things are with lots of momentum

or uncomfortable, whatever the situation is.

All right?

And this is where the CEO version of you matters most.

Because your business will only rise to the level of leadership that you bring to it.

And this reminds me of Ted Lasso.

And if you've seen the Apple TV show,

you know that Ted was an exceptional leader.

And if you haven't, I highly recommend the show on Apple,

not just because it's enjoyable,

but because it is leadership like literally 101 lessons,

all woven through it.

And one of the most powerful lessons in the show

isn't about Ted's strategy or tactics.

It was about inner certainty.

There was a point when Ted was openly mocked by the press,

called unqualified, called naive,

called ridiculous, over and over again.

And what struck me wasn't that he ignored it.

It's that he never let it put him off his path.

He didn't defend himself.

He didn't clap back.

He didn't try to prove he belonged.

Not because he was suppressing a reaction, right?

It wasn't like, oh, I can't say anything to the press.

It was because he knew what he was building.

He knew his strategy.

He knew his vision for the team.

And he believed deeply in his mission,

vision, values, and the way he was leading.

Did he know for sure it would definitely work out?

Of course not.

Human beings are involved.

But he trusted that he himself showing up,

leading, clear, and confident, and consistent,

would give everyone the best possible chance

at the best possible outcome.

And that kind of leadership,

that doesn't come from restraint.

It comes from confidence, right?

And I see that same dynamic in business,

especially in the design industry.

A client asks a lot of questions, pushes back on price,

wants justification, wants to know why something takes so long,

and suddenly you personalize it.

And you think they don't trust you,

like they're questioning you or your expertise.

But here's the truth.

Their opinion of how long it should take to find a sofa

is not relevant.

You've done it 50 times.

You know it's involved.

You understand the decisions, the revisions,

the coordination, the responsibility.

And when you have your systems documented,

and when you understand your own process,

when you truly know the work you're committing to,

it shifts.

You don't get pulled into defending yourself.

You don't get, you don't get taken out.

And you don't start to feel like you're uncomfortable.

You don't have to explain out of insecurity.

You're steady.

You don't take the bait.

You don't let someone else's lack of understanding

your mission, vision, and values for your business

or your project, whatever, or your choice of sofa.

You don't let that redefine your value.

That's leadership.

It's emotional regulation.

And so, how I want to leave you today.

We've just come through a year

that, you know, the year of the snake asking for a reflection,

for shedding, for letting go of what no longer serves us.

That snake energy, that quiet work of seeing clearly

and releasing what isn't working for you.

That matters.

Now though we step into a year with momentum,

with forward energy, with forward motion.

The fire horse doesn't ask you if you're ready.

It's just going to move, okay?

But momentum doesn't mean chaos.

And energy doesn't mean burnout.

You are the navigator.

You get to decide the direction.

You get to choose the pace.

You get to lead with steadiness, intention, and confidence.

This year doesn't require you to become someone new.

It asks you to trust the leader you already are.

So as this year closes and a new one begins,

my wish for you is very simple.

That you move forward fondly.

That you protect what matters.

That you lead with your standards.

And that you build a business that supports your life, not consumes it.

You've got this because you're capable.

And because you're willing to lead.

You are.

You can do it.

All right?

I have to say thank you for spending your time with me.

I always appreciate that you do.

And I wish you a healthy, prosperous, well-designed 2026.

Decide to be excellent.

Thank you for joining me today.

This podcast is a production of Luanna Igarra Inc.

If you want to know more about me, my books, or Luanna University,

go to Luanna Igarra.com.

And if you are interested in having window works help you

with your next window treatment or awning project

in the New York, New Jersey metro area,

go to windowworksng.com to learn more.

Have an excellent day.