1160: WWLD: Before the Podcast, The Decision No One Saw

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.

In the next few weeks, we are leading up to the 10th birthday of this podcast, as we

are.

10 years, February 15th, 2026, my friends.

And I think that it's just so cool because who would have funk it, right?

Number one, number two, it's the year of the fire horse.

Did you know that?

I mean, did you know that?

And I am feeling the year of the fire horse so dramatically.

I have never, ever been attached to the year of anything, ever.

And for some reason, this is, and I'm not on my things in front of me, but I feel like

it starts February 17th actually.

It's like right around there.

So this is like such a kismet thing for me.

The first year was a big milestone.

The fifth year was a big milestone.

They all were.

And I felt them in my heart, in my bones, but there's something about 10 years, 10 years

that we have been showing up, you and I.

The sponsors have been showing up.

The guests have been showing up.

My team has been showing up.

And the ahas just keep coming.

I am equal parts, amazed, grateful, surprised, and delighted.

And the truth is, it's flown by in a blink of the eye.

And it sure has been a wild ride so far.

So for you and your part in this, I thank you.

And before I get into this very special episode, I have to take a moment to say thank you

to Crabbit Inc.

10 years ago, when this podcast was just an idea, Crabbit was the very first company

besides my own, by the way, but the very first company to put their belief and their dollar

bills behind this podcast.

And here we are, a decade later, with Crabbit still showing up year after year as a committed

sponsor, as they've always been, and a supporter of this show and to this industry.

Crabbit Inc.

is always believed in you, the interior designer, and in helping you to run your business

with excellence.

It was the core response that I got when I pitched them to the podcast.

It literally said, we always want to look for ways to support the interior designer in

running their businesses more successfully, legit, okay?

So if you are not already working with Crabbit, I encourage you to open an account, or maybe

it's time for you to deepen your relationship with Crabbit Inc.

Go to Crabbit.com and take advantage of everything they offer to support your business

and your design projects.

Now, for this series, rather than celebrate by simply looking at where we are today, which

is exciting and important, I want to spend a few weeks leading up to the birthday, talking

about something else.

I want to talk about the decisions that came before you were listening, before there were

downloads before there was sponsorship, before this was a business.

Because everyone sees the finished version of a business, and maybe because of this assumptions

about the path of that business are made, that there's assumptions about all decisions

were clear, that the risks were minimal, that the outcome wasn't evidentable.

Well, my business is no different than yours, and those things are as true for me as they

are for you.

You and I know that the most important decisions are usually the ones that no one sees

you make.

So this is the first episode in a four-part series, and I want to take you back to the

moment before a well-designed business existed.

Not the launch, not the growth, the decision, the one that changed everything.

And to understand the decision, you need to know what my business life looked like right

before the decision.

So let me set the stage.

In 2015, my husband Vin and I were still the owners with our cousin bill of window works.

It was and is a solid, successful business at the time doing about two million in gross

revenue a year.

But here's the part that matters.

That revenue relied on two people, me and the Vinnman.

That's it.

And the other part was I was already 53, and he was already 68.

Now we were not struggling, we were not failing.

Here's the kicker.

We were not unhappy, but we were paying attention.

Vin often describes how he started to feel disconnected from our core client demographic,

which is typically women between 35 and 50 years old.

He said he could sense that on one hand, they understood his expertise, right?

They got it.

They knew that he knew.

But he said on the other hand, he almost felt like they were saying to themselves, can

this old guy really like get my aesthetic, can they, can he really make the suggestions

to how to do the window dream into my house?

Like is this going to be good, right?

And so, but for me, it was different.

I was literally slowly losing my mind, yes, not because I didn't like my clients, not

because I didn't respect the work that we were doing, but honest to goodness, I was tired

of having the same insane conversations over and over again.

You have to remember at this point, I am 35 years old.

In, day in and day out on window treatment consults, right?

Thousands of consults, thousands of sales.

So when you as an interior designer, some busy firms, if you're like a one to five person

firm, maybe you'll do 25 or 30 projects in a year, maybe you'll do five.

I could do, I could see 20 customers a week, every week, all right?

A slow week was seven, a busy week was 20.

The average was probably 10 to 15.

And so here I am, different houses, different customers, different clients, but the same conversation.

This white is too white, this white is too yellow.

Should the drape be a half inch off the floor or a quarter inch off the floor, OMG, I used

to walk into a home with 40 windows and I used to feel energized.

I would think, oh yes, let's do this like 40 windows, this is going to be a great sale.

And here I was thinking, oh my goodness, here we go again, dear Lord, please don't also

tell me your husband, her mother, her best friend's neighbor or the crossing guard is going

to have a say in this, just please, right?

I could see the wall, the wall was way in the distance, but I could see it.

And here is an important part of all of this.

We were not done with window works.

We were enjoying running the business.

We still loved owning it.

But for different reasons, each of us, Vin and I, we're seeing that wall.

And when you two are the ones bringing in all of the revenue, you know, you as an owner,

as a CEO, you're like, hey, Houston, we've got a problem, right?

So you know, and there's a saying that JFK, it's attributed to JFK that I heard a hundred

years ago, I wrote it down, I taped it to the wall in my office and it's still there

in the window works office where it was my desk.

And it says, the time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining, right?

I love this.

When I first came across that, I was like, holy canoly, that is it.

The time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining.

And this sentence explains more about how I make decisions than almost anything else.

I have always been the one looking ahead to the next chapter, the next thing.

It's part of the territory of being an early adopter and early having an early adopter

mindset, which definitely describes me.

And I've said this on various podcasts, my own and others.

I mean, and I are a great combination because he is head down driver.

Get it done.

Get it done.

Get it done.

Walk around with it to do sheet in your hand every day, cross everything off and start

the next day.

And you know, I strive to be like that.

I'm not as good at that.

But I'm the one who's looking two weeks, two years, two months, twenty years ahead.

And it's always been the combination, me pushing him to look forward, him making me pay attention

to the detail today, okay?

So the thing is knowing this, there was also a truth that was also always sitting quietly

in the background for Vin and myself.

And we are the thing that was sitting there is that we know we are the kind of people who

will work into our 70s and 80s.

When we were in our 50s and 60s, we were like, we were going to 70s or 80s.

I mean, honestly, when we were 50s and 60s, we used to say 80s and 90s, right?

We've had a lot of talks about this.

We have wrestled with why we do work that is hard to do still.

Do we need to?

Should we pull back?

Should we rest more?

Should we vacation more?

But the simple truth for us is we like what we do.

We like to work.

We like to create.

We like to share.

We like to accomplish.

We like to teach.

So I was asking if we're seeing the wall now and we also know we want to work for

another 20 years, well, what does that look like?

So understanding this moment wasn't panic.

It wasn't burnout.

It was strategy.

So in the background for about two or three years leading up to 2015, I had been mentally

exploring but intentionally asking, what kind of business could we build that does not

depend on knocking on someone's door?

Why me or him?

What kind of business could be done from anywhere?

What business might evolve beyond window works?

Is that a thing?

Because don't forget it.

50-51, when I start exploring this, I'm not thinking I'm leaving window works or he

is.

And could this thing that I could come up with could it support our lifestyle later in

life, right?

So here's where it starts to come together.

I have been listening to podcasts since 2005, 2006.

Like I said, I'm an early adopter.

I would work nights and weekends at window works doing quotes and orders and like other people

would have music in the background.

I always had history podcasts and business podcasts on the background like, you know,

why did Ambulin get her head chopped off like a whole podcast about it, right?

And so if you've ever done that same thing and said this is how I work best, then you know

exactly what I mean.

It's like everybody leaves, everybody's gone, put my podcast on and it used to be on an

iPad, then listen to it on the iPad and just work.

And then in the summer of 2015, I happen to see a Harrow request, help a reporter out.

A podcast was looking to interview entrepreneurs and having nothing to do with anything.

I thought, well, why not?

You know, it's like a bucket list thing.

Like I had been listening to podcasts at that point for 10 years.

And why not be on one?

This could be fun.

So, you know, just a throw away, do it for kicks and giggles, right?

No plan, no attachment, just an experience.

And I've said this to you on the show before.

When that interview ended, I will, for the rest of my life, never forget it.

I can visualize sitting on my computer in my dining room.

I close the computer.

I sat there.

I looked straight ahead and I actually set out loud to no one in the room but me sweet

Jesus.

I need a podcast.

This was not just an intellectual decision.

It was visceral.

It was physical.

I could feel it in my body.

And if you've ever had an idea that hit you like that, you know you have to pursue it.

You owe it to yourself to explore it at the very least.

And so from that moment, everything shifted.

From that moment in July through October of 2015, I immersed myself now in part.

Podcasts about podcasting, not casually, obsessively, obsessively, day, night, morning,

everything, constantly scrolling, the podcast search engine, podcasters on podcasting, how

to podcast, how to start, how do content creation, how to hone a point of view, how to monetize

it, right?

And even though I knew I wanted to do a podcast at this point during this three or four

months exploration, there was one huge question that kept bubbling up that I didn't have

an answer to.

And I just said, universe, you'll show it to me.

It's fine because I knew, you know, you have to care deeply about it.

What can I, what do I care deeply enough to talk about day in and day out?

So I explored fitness.

I at that point, majorly into cycling, running, swimming, all things I enjoyed, yoga.

I thought about women and the next chapter of their lives, like me and Empty Nestor working,

doing all the things and looking ahead, not at like, oh my God, I'm 53 in the world

is over, but I'm 53 and I got 50 years left, I got as many years left as I've had.

What am I going to do with them?

But like, you know, the kids say me, right?

I like doing these things.

I'm interested in these topics and conversations, but I knew in my gut, I definitely didn't

care enough about them to explore them with passion and curiosity.

But the thing was, there was one thing that never bored me.

I can remember back in the day when I was in my 20s and Vinnie and the guys that owned

the window works franchise and Vinnie was a VP and all the things, when they would even,

even if we were just out for dinner, I'd be like, can I be at the guys table, like, can

you hear anything like, I want to be at the business table, I want to hear this conversation,

right?

I always wondered what makes a business successful, what makes it profitable, what makes that

business owner tick, what makes that business owner different than the other one, right?

So the thing about this is, this distinction, something that you care about so much

that you're never bored of, it matters.

It matters more than you maybe realize, right?

Like something is not the same as wanting to teach it, talk about it and stay accountable

to it long term, right?

It can't just be, I think I'm going to do it.

Like this takes that long term accountability when you commit to a business idea, whether

it's a podcast or it's your own business, by the way.

To create something valuable, you have to have the passion attached to it.

I know that's sort of funny me saying that to you because every single one of you, every

designer I've ever met, loves, loves, loves the creative part of your work, the selections,

the ideas, the innovations, right?

I know you get having the passion attached to it, but I had a problem because when I finally

thought, you know, business is the thing and I searched what was then called iTunes,

like multiple hundreds of thousands of results came up for podcasts on business, right?

Not dozens, not hundreds, hundreds of thousands.

And I have to tell you for a hot minute, I felt defeated, right?

I was just like, uh, good, right?

Who needs another one?

Then one day on a job site, a designer asked me for business advice.

This is the kind of thing that had happened dozens of times over the last 35 years, casually,

organically.

And it hit me.

I can do a business podcast.

I just have to niche it just like we've been told.

I didn't know I was going to hear this advice for the next 10 years over and over, right?

By the way, Nancy Ganskowfer, now Nancy Quinn, was here on episode 15 titled, Nitches

Rich, brought his broke, right?

So we started learning it from the beginning, but that's six months before I knew it to

be true.

I knew it's so much better to have a clear point of view to be the one thing, not the

one of many.

And so I decided I would niche my business podcast to you, the interior designer.

You know, I understood your world to an extent.

I respect your talent immensely.

And I was endlessly curious about the myriad of ways you all run your business.

Because in all those organic conversations for all those 35 years, every time I would

get a designer would ask me a business question and I had a 16 question.

So I understood what your problem was.

I was like, my goodness.

I all do it a different different way, it's like bookers, right?

And so the thing is this combination of my own business experience and the adjacent business

experience, the adjacent experience to your businesses mattered, right?

Because that helped inform the way I was going to show up here.

And if you're listening and thinking, OK, if I'm going to apply this to me, what are

my adjacent business experiences that maybe I'm forgetting or leaving off the table when

it comes to how I approach my interior design business, right?

I want you to remember that that previous experience, that proximity goes into creating

your current expertise.

And you've heard me say it's 16 billion times are Eric award transferable skills.

Because back in episode six, Eric award told us how she took her skills from her previous

career and applied them to interior design.

And she is the first person on the podcast to say out loud, go look at what you know and

bring it to what you want to do, right?

So we will link these episodes, Nancy's episodes and Erica's in the show notes.

They're definitely good ones to listen to if you've missed them.

So now what am I doing?

Now I'm googling interior design business podcasts in iTunes and in Google and so forth.

And the truth is at the time there was only one other current producing podcast.

There was some that had potted years, years, years, years ago.

But one other podcast that was claiming to teach the business of interior design.

So again, I had a little hot minute of, oh, dang it, right?

But then I listened to six, seven, eight, 10 episodes.

And the truth is it was entertaining.

The host is a kind person, the guests were entertaining, enjoyable to listen to.

But objectively, it wasn't keeping its promise to teach you how to run a business.

It talked about that in a roundabout way.

It talked about how you should run your business well.

And it talked to designers that were apparently running their business as well.

But when I listened to that many episodes, in my opinion, there was not enough weeds,

not enough actual how to do it, right?

And it also frankly spent a fair amount of time talking to the guests about their vacations,

their inspirations, your favorite fashions, fun, interesting things, but not delivering

on the promise of the show, not on point.

And so my thing was there was a gap, there was an opening, there was a lane.

And if you remember the episode, back number 540 with Robin Baron, it's called strategic

thinking, strategically thinking about product development, right?

I'll link that in the notes as well.

She explained that if you want to bring a product to market, you want to go to somebody

and say, I want you to make my towel bars, I want you to make my fabric designs, whatever

it is.

She said one of the critical steps is to identify if your idea, if your product, if your

solution fills a gap in the marketplace, is it currently missing, right?

There could be 15,000 chandeliers out there, but it's something about yours different,

special, unique, right?

And this is what I found when I listened to this other podcast.

It was not in any way a judgment on the quality of that existing show.

It just was simply an observation that there was a legit gap in the marketplace for a true

business podcast for interior designers.

So I made a clear distinction at that moment.

I am not here to talk about the pretty, I am not here to talk about inspiration boards,

I am not here to talk about how you loved rearranging a furniture as a child.

I've said you all the time, I know you can do that.

I expect you to be good at design, right?

I realized that was being handled, those fun, enjoyable, let me grab a cup of coffee

or a glass of wine and peek into the back end life of an interior designer that was handled.

But I wasn't going to repeat it.

This podcast would be specifically about turning your passion into a sustainable business

period, right?

And this is where businesses can go off the rails, interior design businesses, window

treatment businesses, any business.

When you want to be everything to everyone, instead of deciding what problem you are there

to solve, right, that's a mistake.

And there is another theme and a lesson that we've heard from guests throughout the years.

Do you, do it well and deliver what you say you will?

I knew in my gut that this would be important work.

I knew it from the hundreds of interior designers I worked with over the years at window works.

Because a creative business and cue the word business without profit will lead to resentment,

right?

Talent without structure leads to burnout.

So let's talk about the risk associated with this because that matters too.

When I pitched this idea to Vin, there was nothing casual about it, my friend, right?

You know, I had casually been talking about it July, September, you know, July, August,

September.

But when October came, I knew what I wanted to do and what I was proposing was going to

require real dollar bills and actual investment.

I was not proposing a hobby.

I was not going to DIY the podcast.

I wanted to hire audio editors.

I wanted to hire a podcast in consultant.

I wanted to hire a web developer to create this landing page and this information.

And I wanted a real graphic artist to create the podcast icon logo, not five dollars on

Fiverr, right?

I did not want any of this to be five and dived on Fiverr.

And then because he had started multiple businesses at this point, even though he did not know

what a podcast was, if you've ever heard that story, literally was like, okay, I get it.

I've been hearing this word for the last three months.

But before you tell me anymore, tell me what is a podcast, right?

The thing what he did know was he knew what it takes to launch a business.

And that's what we did.

By the end of that first year, we had spent just under $100,000 to operate the podcast

and all of the moving parts that went into it.

And you know what?

We had taken in just over $200 more than we spent.

It was like $230 more than we spent is what we took in.

Because yes, the Vinnman had a spreadsheet with every blasted dollar spent and every dollar

earn listed on that spreadsheet.

And every single week, every single month, as something would come in or I would say, oh,

I need this money to pay glory and brand or I need this money to do this.

He will, okay, let me write it on the spreadsheet.

And then it's like, hey, this speaking engagement came in or this order came in or this came

in.

This sponsor came in and then he would put it on the spreadsheet.

And I don't remember at the end of that first year, then he's like, you know, I'm going

to total up the spreadsheet now and he had like his monthly totals going, right?

And I remember sitting next to him and I'm thinking, oh, my God, oh, my God.

And he looked at me and he's like, you're $200 and change over.

And I'm like, and I just stared at him because I didn't know what tech he was going to say

or do.

And he just looked at me and he goes, okay, it lives another year.

You've proven concept.

And the thing about it was this, all of this happened while I was still responsible

for my million dollars in sales at window works, okay?

So the hard part wasn't just making the money, monetizing the podcast and creating it into

a business.

It was also that I was carrying two businesses in my head at the same time, right?

For every one of you that is listening, that is built your design business as a side

hustle to your day job, I get you.

I did that for four years.

It was not easy, but it was worth it.

And hopefully you have turned your design side hustle into a profitable business too.

I hope that for you, right?

So for me and for you, this thought has to be top of mind.

A hobby is something you fit in when you have time.

A business gets scheduled and gets done.

That's it.

That's the money line.

You do a hobby when you feel like it and you have time to do it.

A business gets scheduled and gets done.

Now people often ask me, what can be going this demanding schedule, the two, you know,

trying to keep up my responsibilities at window works?

Don't forget, it's not just sales.

I was also the people person, the HR person at window works and, you know, the hiring

and the firing and the, you know, the chief complaint officer when things get a little

dicey.

One that that conversation goes to, you know, branding and marketing and things like

that, right?

All the moving parts, the long hours.

Here are the three things that kept me going.

First is I had made a decision to do this.

I believed in it and I believed it was needed.

So it being hard or inconvenient was infected in.

I expected it to be hard.

I expected it to be inconvenient.

That wasn't a part of it.

I made a decision.

I was doing it.

You know, that financial commitment was no joke.

You know, we invested, like I said, nearly 100,000.

It was like $97,000 in change, okay?

You don't just casually walk away from that.

You just do not.

Not if you, you know, have a conscious brain in your head, right?

And third, third, what was the third thing that kept me going?

You listeners started reaching out to me.

Emails telling me that you were listening.

They would find the email, the window works email,

because I didn't have a Luana.

I got her email then and they would say,

I don't know if Luana will ever see this,

but I wanted to know.

I found her podcast and it's helping me so much.

I had a problem last week and blah, blah, blah.

And then the reviews on iTunes now Apple.

They were coming in.

They were just coming in and people were saying,

I love this.

You asked the question in my head, oh my God,

there's no fluff.

This is awesome.

And it wasn't just stars.

You know, if you go and leave a review,

you can just click on a star and that's it.

But right now, I haven't looked in a couple of months,

but last time I, it's like over 500 written reviews, okay?

And, you know, they weren't just my mom and her friends.

I'm just saying.

And then the other thing that happened was,

as I started to meet you in real life,

you were repeating my words back to me

and quoting the lessons you were learning from the podcast.

And that's when I knew.

I knew we were onto something.

Even our cousin Billy, after the first year said to me,

you know, lo, I gotta say, over the years,

you've had a heck of a many ideas.

Some good ones, some not so good ones,

but I think you might hit it this time.

It was a fun moment, I have to say.

Now, the year's the thing I wanna leave you with,

whether you've been in business one year, 10 years,

or 40 years, it's always worth asking,

does my business still work for me?

Is it how I want to live to be, to show up?

And if it is like me, is it how I want to live in my future?

How I want that to look like, right?

Because if it doesn't, then you have to ask,

is it because I haven't committed?

I have not invested in the things that will help me grow

and make it into the kind of business

that I imagined it to be, right?

I have to ask yourself, have I just been trying

instead of doing, right?

A lot of people try themselves all the way around the corner

and back to the same spot.

There's a difference between trying and doing.

There just is, right?

Or if the business doesn't work for you now

at the stage of your life,

it's not how you want it to be and how you want to show up,

is it because like me, you are simply knowing

you're heading into a different season

and it requires a different business model

for that new season.

So each of these are different problems.

The first two are you're in the business

and you're not facing it.

You're not doing the hard things

to make it the business you want.

The third is maybe it never was or could be the business you want

or it was like window works,

but it needed a new solution now, right?

So these are different problems

and they require different decisions

on your part to address them.

But no matter what you might need to do to change,

definitely pause long enough before moving on

before changing things up to acknowledge

what you have done right to get where you are, right?

Think about what worked and why did it work?

Because you want to take those lessons and insights

into your new path, whether that like me

is in 2016 a whole new business

or like me in 2026 a whole new direction

for the same business, right?

So if you listen to the episode last April 24, 2025,

you know that I have been back here in the background

revamping the show, changing the format

and I finally expected to be ready

around the time of the birthday, okay?

So the thing is you have to look to see what you've done right

and I want you to remember the episode with Heather Hansen

and we will put her link in the show notes as well.

If you remember Heather Hansen comes from being a trial lawyer

and now she is a business life coach, right?

And she says we are our own advocates

and we always need to gather the evidence of our successes,

not to underestimate them, to know them,

to pull them out of our back pocket

when we are unsure of ourselves.

You know, it's like the darn t-shirt says,

you can do hard things and you have evidence

of the hard things you've done, right?

You have learned things, you have proof you're capable,

gather it, gather those things,

honor those things and believe in them.

So next week, we're going to talk about

what happened after the podcast launched,

the momentum, the mistakes and the systems

that made 10 years possible, okay?

So until then, thank you so much for joining me today

and every darn day that you do.

I appreciate you more than you realize

and I'll just say to you, it just went through my head,

it's not in the script that I wrote

but if you have never left a review,

that would be really awesome if you did

because it's fun for me to see what you like about the show.

It helps me deliver it to you, okay?

Anyway, thank you, thank you.

Decide to be insolent.

Thank you for joining me today.

This podcast is a production of Luan Niagara Inc.

If you want to know more about me, my books

or Luan University, go to luanniagara.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.