161. Let's Talk About Being Busy Is Not the Goal: The Creative to CEO Shift for Interior Designers

Welcome to the Business of Beautiful Spaces, a podcast that's specifically for

interior designers and decorators. This is the podcast for designers and

decorators who love creating beautiful spaces, but also know that building a

profitable business it will makes it all sustainable. Hi, I'm Laura Thorton and

after nearly 30 years in the interior design industry and building a seven

figure design firm, I know firsthand how lonely it can feel running your own

business. Making big decisions without a boardroom, without a business partner,

or another executive team member to walk things through. That's exactly why

this podcast exists. Think of me as your interior design bestie. The place you

come for honest conversations, real action items, and a clear to-do list that

you can apply today to move the needle forward and improve your bottom line.

And if you can't get the answers you're looking for here, one-on-one

mentorship with me is always available because no designer and decorator

should have to figure this out alone. My goal with every episode is simple, to help

you build a more profitable, confident design business, and propel you into

sustainable, successful future. So let's dive in. Welcome back to the episode of

the Business of Beautiful Spaces. Let's dive into it. At some point in every

designer's career, you hit what I call the mind shift. It's in this moment that

you realize being talented and being booked does not automatically equal being

profitable. And for a lot of designers, this realization arrives in a very

frustrating way. You're busy, you're in demand, you don't have time to do a lot

of different things that you want to do. All the things that you wanted to do

and why you became a designer are just not falling into place. And it is

frustrating. And you're producing beautiful work. But behind the scenes you're

exhausted, you're guessing, you're thinking where did the money go? I'll come

there isn't more of it left in my bank account at the end of the month. And this

episode is about that shift. It's the shift that goes from the creative to the

CEO. And not because we want to become corporate, not because creativity isn't

enough. It's because strategy is what is protecting our creativity. And creativity

is what's building the brand. It is the strategy that is building the business

which ultimately will produce profits. And without strategy and without growth

and without creating that stress, you are not creating freedom for yourself.

And the moment where it changes is when, well, it's, here's the truth. For a long

time, many of us build a very demanding hobby and not a business. And a hobby

is great. And you're probably very good at it. I have a lot of hobbies. I also

like to golf. I also play majong. I love a eukernite. It's like, I have a lot of

hobbies. And I love to do. And people praise you for your hobby of interior design

and the hobby that looks very successful from the outside. But it is still a hobby.

If it isn't reliably producing profit, boundaries and sustainability.

In my earlier, I did what most designers do. And I said, yes, to everything I

underpriced my projects, figuring out make it up on the next one. I worked late.

I worked weekends. Listen, I still work late and I still work weekends.

And that's just the beauty of an entrepreneur. But that's by choice. That's for more

growth. I could sustain here very easily. But these are things that I had to do.

I had to do those things to make my business work and to make up the hours.

And I told myself that this was temporary and that it was just the season I was in.

And that was, to me, a badge of honor, this being busy all the time,

meant that I must be making it. I must be like fabulous because I'm so busy.

I'm so booked. And busy was not the goal.

Profit was the goal. And profit should not be a dirty word.

Profit is what allows my creativity to thrive. And I'm quite sure it's the same for you.

And when you stop thinking like a hobbyist and start that mind shift,

start thinking like a CEO literally everything changes.

Not just your income, your confidence changes, your boundaries change.

Your decision making changes and the kinds of projects that you accept.

I promise you will change.

And you stop hoping that it is all going to just work out.

You are planning. You are planning for profit.

And the biggest myth in our industry is that profit comes from working harder

from getting more clients and more projects and more hours and more late nights.

And profitability does not come from more.

Profitability will come from understanding your numbers, valuing your time

and building a business model that supports creativity instead of draining it.

Working harder is not the strategy working smarter is you've all heard that before.

It becomes gleamingly clear once you shift.

Once you make the mind shift from this from the hobbyist to the CEO,

you will stop making emotional decisions and you'll start making very strategic decisions

because emotional decisions are very expensive.

So the entire shift is built on something very, very simple.

Designers don't hit profit by accident.

They are going to reverse engineer. We reverse engineer it.

I do that every year here. I reverse engineer what my goals are

and I figure out what I need to market to get there.

And we start with clarity around those goals.

We start with understanding our numbers.

We then have the shift into CEO thinking.

We are not just focused on salary.

We are focusing on creating wealth.

I'm going to repeat that.

We are not focused on salary.

We are going to focus on creating wealth because if we treat time

as the asset that it truly is, and if we design for capacity, not for chaos,

and we follow the profit, not our ego, and I want you to hear this really clearly.

This is not hustle culture. This is not burnout.

This is not being a martyr.

This is called leadership.

So let's start with strategy number one.

Defining your target.

If you want to run the business like a CEO, we need a distinction.

And goals help create that distinction and also help us drive our decisions.

So without clear goals, every decision becomes reactionary.

It becomes emotional.

It becomes based on what feels urgent instead of what feels and what will be profitable.

So are three goals that I want you to define.

What are your revenue goals?

What do you want the business to bring in?

Because revenue doesn't mean a whole lot.

You know, I belong to a business, a global business association that's solely based on entry on your revenue goal.

And I always found that really interesting.

I guess you have to have something.

But anyone could say they have, let's say you have a million dollar business.

But if it costs you $900 and $995,000 to run, what does that mean?

It means you're working really hard to not make a lot of money.

So these are the things that I always find interesting, but you have to have a revenue goal.

Because once you know your numbers and you know your profit goals within that revenue,

it's very easy for you to start figuring out what size projects you need to bring in to make those profit goals.

So what is profit goals?

What is the business need to bring in?

Excuse me, that just made a mistake.

Revenue goals.

Number one, revenue goals, what is the business bringing in?

Number two, your profit goals.

What does the business get to keep?

And three, your capacity goals.

How much time and energy your business requires from you in order to achieve one and two,

which is revenue goals and profit goals?

And if one of these is missing, your business becomes unbalanced very, very fast.

So a lot of designers I talked to and mentor very quickly.

I realize it is not lack of ambition.

It is not lack of clarity.

It just feels very, very safe and less risky.

To not have these goals, but you're throwing dice every year,

figuring out and trying to know what you're going to be able to expect and what you're working towards.

So that is something we work with together and mentorship to have these very distinct goals,

not vague, not vague pricing.

There is no vague boundaries.

There is no vague project selection and vague also is expensive.

So instead of starting with revenue, I want you to start with life.

If you don't know how much revenue you need to make in a year,

okay, that's totally cool.

Let's let's go back a little bit further.

Let's start with the life that you want.

Does your business fund your life or is it the other way around?

And what do you want your business to support?

Not just the bills, but also retirement savings.

Do you want to travel?

Do you have education funds that you want for your children, personal savings?

What goals excite you?

And yes, what's going to make you slightly uncomfortable?

These are called your behegs and you'll probably hear this a lot.

If you listen to business podcasts or if you read a lot of books and the behegs

are short form for big, hairy, audacious goals.

These are the things that can be absolutely massive.

Can be three years, five years, 10 years, 25 years.

I don't have 25 years left anymore in business, which is wild and crazy.

I mean, I could, but because I've had behegs and because I've had goals,

I thankfully don't have to, but these are things that you can have as goals.

You can set them to be a one year out, three year out, five year out.

You decide and then you decide how big they are.

Maybe your goal in 10 years is to have a little sports car that you can drive

yourself to their cottage with or maybe it's to take a trip with your family

or maybe it doesn't have to be something that costs a lot of money.

It could just be something that costs you time.

So it could also be something for self care.

It doesn't have to be anything that, you know, when you hear big,

hairy, audacious goals, I think people think it needs to be like a multi-million

dollar company with 100 employees.

That's not what this means.

This means what you want, what your life goals look like.

And then we're going to start playing small, financially.

We're going to start.

I can't, I need, let me, coffee, I need a coffee break.

Let me take a sip.

Hmm.

That is my first one today.

So that explains why I'm having problems speaking.

Plus, you're the first people I've talked to today.

You get my morning voice.

Okay.

So playing small, financially will still cost you a lot.

That's what I was struggling with saying.

And once you understand what life requires, then you can very easily reverse

engineer a salary to suit those goals.

And if your salary is something that you are not pulling from your company

regularly and you're just getting whatever is left over, that line item

should be in your annual business plan.

It should not be that you just get to keep whatever is in the bank account

at the end of the month.

And if you don't decide your salary, your business is going to decide it for you.

And then it's going to usually decide low.

And that's because you don't know your numbers.

And again, this is not a finger pointing situation.

This is you don't know what you don't know until you do.

And it is scary.

I know I, I, I was you.

If you're thinking, oh God, I don't want to look at my numbers.

I don't want to know these things.

I was you.

I did that for a long time.

It didn't understand what it was going to teach me.

And once you do, once you dive in and give yourself the grace to learn,

it is incredible what you learn from numbers and what you learn about your business

and where you learn about your spending and where you learn about where you're not spending

and where you're profitable and how that will tweak and change your business.

So this is something where that difference between thinking like a creative

and thinking with a CEO becomes gleamingly clear.

So once you know your salary goals and your capacity goals,

then you can start choosing the right projects.

They're going to help you reach those goals because not every project is going

to support that life you want.

And the project mix matters, the scope matters, the fees matter, the timelines matter

and client expectations matter also.

And that means that you get to stop choosing projects that are based on what looks good

on Instagram, what feels guilty about saying no to what you think you should take

and start choosing projects based on what supports profit, what supports capacity

and what supports the future you are trying to build.

Aligning projects don't just fill your calendar, they're going to fund your future.

And once you understand your numbers, which is strategy number two

that we're just about to dive into, that list right there

that supports your profit, your capacity and supports the future you're building

will automatically feed the one before, which is you might not care if it looks good

on Instagram. Don't post that job.

Who cares? Who cares if it doesn't make it on to Instagram?

It doesn't matter if it's making you a nice profit at the end of the month.

I always call those projects the not-so-sexy projects.

And I've had a lot of not-so-sexy projects that have been incredibly profitable

for the business and referrals, which hopefully leads to one that is worth photographing.

But if somebody wanted, I say this all the time to other designers,

when we meet for lunch and we hang out and I've got for like an internship too,

I tell them in this as well. I don't put on my website,

which I know a lot of other podcasts will tell you to do.

And a lot of other professionals will tell you to do your minimums.

And the reason I don't do that is because if I have a minimum of $150,000 or $200,000

room or budget on my website, I don't know what that project is.

And most clients don't know what it's going to cost.

So you could get on a discovery call and spend 15 minutes with a potential client

and learn that they need $100,000 worth of decorating

or they need one bathroom that'll cost the same.

It might just be a house full of drapery.

I am going to take the decorating the drapery every time because that as more profit in it

than re-renovating their bathroom.

And they're the same dollar spend or one, even if that bathroom was $200,000,

which sounds better as your revenue, I am still better with lower revenue

and a higher profit margin on the other two items I just mentioned.

I hope that makes sense.

But this is what all of this is going to help you understand.

So let's dive into strategy number two, which is understanding your numbers.

If you don't understand your numbers, every decision does become a guessing game.

You don't know how to price.

You don't know if you're ready to hire.

You don't know who you're marketing to or what you're marketing for

and which projects you ultimately want to say yes to.

And it feels very stressful because we're guessing instead of leading.

So here's a really honest question.

Do you know your monthly expenses?

Do you know what it costs to run your company?

If you don't know big deal, most people when I do this, don't have a clue.

And that's totally fine.

We're going to figure that out.

You're going to figure this out in 2026.

Do you know then how much your yearly expenses are?

If you know how much money you're spending in a month to run your business

between the seats, the cell phone, the car, the insurance, the liability insurance,

your AutoCAD seats, your computers, all the things that cost you money.

Let's face it, running your own interior design business can feel overwhelming.

But guess what?

You don't have to do it alone.

I am so excited to introduce a brand new way to get the support you need.

One-on-one mentorship with me, Laura Thornton, your interior design bestie.

In just one focused hour, we'll dive into whatever you need most,

whether that's pricing strategies, client management, presentations, attracting clients,

building up a repeat business, or just getting out of the hamster wheel.

You'll get clarity, strategy, and expert advice based on my 28 years

of running a thriving business.

And then over the last decade, a seven figure design firm.

This is your chance to get real answers to the questions you've been dying to ask

from someone who's actually been there and is currently still walking the walk.

Book your session as you need it.

There are no strings attached.

You'll walk away with personalized actionable advice that you can implement right away.

One-on-one one-hour sessions as you need it.

Head to the website or click the link in the show notes to book your mentorship session.

And let's build a beautiful, profitable business that you've been dreaming of together.

If you don't know what it costs in a month,

how do you know what you're trying to, what your goal is for every month to clear

in profits to be able to cover that?

And then if you don't know what that is in a year,

and why I say you're in monthly, it's just going to delineate this a little bit.

There are things that come every month on my credit card, like seats for design docs,

or studio designer, whatever it's called now.

You know, the storage, my cell phone, there's things that are every month.

Then I have things within the year that cost me more.

Like my insurance, I pay it in the lump sum.

I don't pay monthly.

I like to get rid of it.

I just, I just pay it.

But I still need to amortize it over the 12 months so that I know how much money I need

to clear every month in profits, not in revenue, in profits to be able to cover myself.

So that's why those two are important.

And they are a little bit different, you know, monthly is monthly.

And then you might have some yearly expenses if you pay things like I just mentioned.

So, and do you know what a cost to run your business before you pay yourself one dollar of salary?

These are important things you need to know.

So figure that out, figure that out maybe in this month.

Promise yourself that once it's coming out, this is coming out in March.

Promise yourself by the end of March.

You're going to know exactly what a cost to run your business every month and by the year.

This is going to be huge if you don't already know.

Because then you're going to be able to figure out what you need to clear in profits every single month

to be able to cover.

And then you'll need to be able to figure out what you want to make in addition to that to pay yourself.

So most designers will know roughly and rough math is not a strategy.

So when you understand your numbers, you can increase your profits without adding any work

because once you start seeing these bills and once you start doing the deep dive,

you can start figuring out if you still need that subscription to house and home or

a brand of magazine or architectural digest.

By the way, this is the first year.

Well, actually it was last year, 25, I stopped all of them because by the time I got them,

and by the time I sat down, I usually had 10 because I hadn't looked at them in months.

And I've seen all the pictures on Pinterest already.

I've seen them on Instagram already.

I've seen them on TikTok already.

So why, I mean, I love supporting these magazines.

I grew up adoring them and loving them and coveting them arriving.

But I've seen everything already.

I don't read all that.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm a picture girl.

I'm not reading all the articles.

Sometimes, but I've gotten rid of them.

I've stopped paying for them software seats.

Do you need, we used to pay for three AutoCAD software seats.

We don't need three.

We needed two.

We got rid of one.

We didn't need everybody in the office to have studio designer.

We only need one person to have it.

So that's got's gone too.

We really started to see where we had some leaks and those leaks add up to profits.

And you don't even, you're not even needing a new pipeline to do that.

Right?

Mind blowing.

Boom.

You're welcome.

Yeah, definitely need to do that.

Promise yourself.

Promise me you're going to do it by the end of March.

Let's just see where that lands.

And then you can work on something else next month for April and every month,

promise yourself a little something.

And by the end of 2026, you're going to be more profitable.

So this usually starts, you know, a, a trickle effect because once you start

feeling a bit empowered, you're going to keep wanting to know more.

I'm sorry.

I'm really derailing.

I should have had more coffee before I started this.

So, okay.

So let's now, after you're going to find all those leaks, you're going to start

to reverse engineer your projects.

How many consultations do I need a month to cover?

What it costs me to run this business?

How many design only projects do I need?

How many renovation projects do I need?

How many decorating projects do I need?

How many kitchen renovations do I need?

You can start figuring out whatever niche you're in, what it looks like,

and how much of those you need to lock down every month and every year to make

your numbers make sense.

And when you know that, your marketing becomes intentional instead of hopeful.

We're just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks, throwing those

pictures on Instagram with a little blurb that we chat, GPD, and just hoping

that someone goes, yes, I love that.

Let's, I want that room.

Let's call them.

You can start skewing it to be whatever you needed to be.

You can, you can pick five a week or a month, rather like one a month,

one a week to, let's try that again, one a week.

So four in a month that are skewed towards just your consultations, two hour paid

consultations.

Most of that will cover your costs for the month if you get one a week, two a month.

And once you know that too, then you don't have to over complicate your strategy

on marketing because now it's purposeful.

It's planning, you'll save time.

So again, review your profit and loss your monthly every month, whatever you get

from your bookkeeper, some people get it quarterly, that's fine too.

But I'm sure you can pop into your own accounting system and look at that.

By staying informed, you can start making very strategic planning.

I also like to recommend planning quarterly.

So you can sit down and plan not only your projects, but now that you know what

projects you need to get, that also allows you to strategically plan your

marketing side by side.

And then those two things can be on whatever day of the week you decide you

want to do that.

And then annual, you want to set long term goals.

So that is your quarterly, monthly, quarterly, and annually.

You want to know all of those little nuggets and you're going to want to write

those items down and then you're going to work towards that.

And your profit and loss is not just an accounting term or requirement that

you know, you hear a lot.

It really is a strategic tool.

I again, belong to this global organization with entrepreneurs and we sit

down every month.

And in my group, we talk about our numbers and show our profit and loss.

And that's because it's important.

It's important to share and people see things and help you and point out where

maybe you can save them where they have been able to, you know, have strategic

savings made or what they use in a way to save time.

And it's really empowering to be able to learn from others as well.

Okay.

So let's move on to, I just want to briefly talk.

And if you've listened to the podcast, I'm sorry.

You know I preach on this, the markup versus margin.

It is a real silent profit killer.

And it's huge.

One of the most common mistakes designers decorators make is confusing markup

and margin markup is the percentage added to cost and margin is the

percentage to the final selling price that is profit.

So the difference matters because if you think you're earning 20%,

you're actually earning closer to 16.

And that gap adds up fast over the year.

And that is not about being expensive.

It is about being accurate and understanding the basic accounting terms really

will help you build confidence and confidence.

Confident designers will price better.

You just will and CEOs will price before emotion, not after regret.

I have to tell you, one of the best things that ever happened to me in my

business was I hired a procurement manager and it took the ability for me.

It took the ability away from me to be able to tweak my pricing.

Cause if I thought that was high and I was like, ooh, I don't know if I would

pay that and I would just change it on the fly.

She doesn't do that.

She knows what our margins are.

She knows what we mark up.

She knows what because again, I was being emotional.

I like the people I felt like it was high.

It was the right piece for the room and I thought it was going to look so much

better, but I was afraid they weren't going to want to pay the price.

So I would lower it to get the item in there because I knew it would look

better. And meanwhile, I'm the one that's losing the profit.

Anyway, best scenario I've ever done because she doesn't do that.

She just does the pricing.

It all comes out in the presentation and people sign it and don't think to

vice about it.

And all the years I did that nobody probably cared.

And I was the only one losing.

So regret for sure.

So strategy three, we're going to create wealth.

We're not just going to create a salary.

And this is the third mind shift and this is where it becomes real.

A profitable business is more than just a paycheck.

The salary pays for today and the wealth is going to create options for tomorrow.

So if your business is only paying you when you're working, you don't

really own a business.

You own a job and interior design is physical.

And it's mentally demanding and most designers do not want to be doing

installs forever.

And that's not failure.

It's wisdom.

Well, it gives you longevity.

Revenue pays the bills, profit builds assets.

And without profit, there is no wealth.

You're just surviving.

So wealth shows up as cash reserves, hiring before burnout, growth before

debt and flexibility and choice.

So wealth is built when the value of the business doesn't live.

Only inside you.

And when the value lives inside you, the business can't grow beyond you.

If it's just you and only you and you can't make any, you know, money

when there is when you're not working, then that is a job that is not a business.

So we need to change that.

We needed to make it also that you're not just paying yourself the salary that

there's money in the business.

One of the things I do teach in the profit academy is how to figure all that out.

How to figure out your hourly salary and then not just paying you.

It's what's left in the business and how you build up that bank account.

So that that bank account can start making you more money, whether you choose to

invest it, whether you choose to buy property with it, whether you choose to,

you know, some people, I know myself, I put money away every single time.

And then I bought rentals and now that creates more income for me.

So these are things that you can start to build towards.

I know that's a lot as we just maybe talk to some people who are just going to

start figuring out what the business costs per month, but that's the goal.

The goal is to create wealth.

So yes, you're drawing your salary.

Yes, you're able to pay yourself and take a vacation inside for your retirement,

but the business is also creating wealth that's going to create more money for

you and other opportunities and other ways.

So that's the mind shift.

The hobbyist to the CEO shift, it really is a mindset piece.

Hobbyist thinking sounds a lot like I'm going to figure out pricing as I go.

I've all I've done it.

I know you've done it.

We've all done it.

I'll be busy first and profitable later done that one as well.

I mean, that's a time in the past for me, but we've I've done that.

And I feel bad charging for my experience and all my knowledge and all my years of wisdom.

Right.

Are you nodding your head?

Yes.

Of course you are.

So CEO thinking sounds much more like this.

My pricing supports my life and my team.

Profit is planned before the project begins.

My expertise is the value.

And I build my systems and I delegate intentionally.

And yes, this can feel uncomfortable.

And because being talented does not make your business profitable.

Being busy does not mean that your business is healthy.

Loving design does not replace leadership.

CEO thinking changes the questions that you ask yourself.

You stop asking, can I charge this amount for my time?

And you start asking, does this support the business I am building?

The one question alone will change how you price, how you scope and how you say, yes.

CEO work is not client work.

Designers often tell me that they don't have time to work on their business,

but CEOs work on what is creating profit.

CEO works a lot like this.

You have to review your profit and loss, not just monthly.

I do mind weekly, start monthly if you're not used to it quarterly, yearly.

You have to track your time.

You need to know where you're leaking efficiencies, reviewing project

profitability.

You need to know every project that you've done and even correct after.

Make sure you've added in any deficiencies, anything that cost you extra money,

any time that you went, you need to then find out the profit percentage on that project.

And then figure out how that supports your goals.

Like I know in this business, I need to be hitting a 30% profit margin on every project.

So we don't wait until the project is presented to figure that out.

We have to make it that the project is hitting those goals before,

before we present.

So if we have to tweak it that we're more profitable, we do that.

That is how you run a business as a CEO.

It no longer is about what are the pretty pictures look like.

I have to make it that we're making money or I don't have a business.

If I'm not making that money on each project, then the doors are going to close.

People aren't going to get paid.

I will have to shut my business down because that's what it takes to run the business.

It's scary.

It is, but it's very powerful to know those numbers and it's very powerful to work your business in that way.

Strategy number five, time is money, literally.

Time tracking is not optional.

If you want to be really profitable, it is, it is not just measuring your profitability.

It's measuring your efficiency.

How do you know if you're getting faster, if you're getting better, if your team is getting faster,

if your team is getting better, how do you know what to charge?

If you don't know how much time it takes.

And even if you do move to flat fees, you still have to track your time.

Because if you don't, you don't know what your services are worth and you're guessing and hoping.

Efficiency equals profit.

If I was ever to get a tattoo, it would be that and make it happen.

Those are my two sayings that I say all the time, but I don't have a tattoo, but that would be it.

So time tracking will show you where tasks are taking longer than they should, where your team is stretched

how much each, how long each phase is taking and where bottlenecks are costing you hours and money.

And it helps you decide which role to hire first when you're ready to scale.

People guess all the time.

That is a gleamingly obvious place where you know that you're spending your time and your time is worth more.

You can pay somebody a lot less to do that.

Do not pass on your efficiency gains to clients as you get more efficient and as you're focused on

being more profitable and you're making your business more efficient through processes and time tracking.

You don't pass that on to the client.

You keep that as profit.

That is your reward for being more efficient.

Strategy number six, design for capacity, not for chaos.

This is also a huge one.

Most designers think that they have a pricing problem.

Most designers actually have a capacity problem.

Burnout doesn't come from low pricing.

It comes from mismanaging capacity.

If your calendar is overloaded and even good pricing will not save you, busy is not the goal.

You can have a full calendar.

You can still produce very little profit.

Most clients often will increase the chaos, not your revenue.

So capacity is a business decision.

It includes how many projects you take on.

How much time you're going to spend on each, each phase and your team can realistically support.

Or if it's just yourself, how much you can realistically support.

And if you don't decide your capacity, your clients are going to decide it for you.

So your calendar will tell you the truth.

It never lies.

It shows you what you prioritize.

It shows you where your profit is leaking and it shows you whether your business is supporting your life.

Capacity is protected by your systems and your processes.

And if you don't have them, then you're going to start that as well in 2026.

So your processes are not documented.

Then your business is living entirely in your head.

And that makes growth, delegation and any type of rest impossible.

So let's ask ourselves, if someone had to step into our business tomorrow,

could they follow the process without you?

Do you know how long each phase actually takes in your business?

And could you confidently answer timelines in a consultation?

Those answers reveal where capacity is leaking.

Okay, strategy number seven, follow the profit.

This is a hard truth.

Your design hours will always cap your income.

So there are only so many hours in a day, only so many clients that you can personally

serve and time alone cannot be scaled.

So if you want to grow your revenue without burning out, you have to think beyond your time.

And this is where procurement becomes one of the most underutilized profit centers in our industry.

It increases your profit margins without increasing your workload in the same way that design hours do.

And every item that you have already sourced in a presentation is an opportunity to profit when it is managed intentionally.

And many studios procurement becomes a big game changer.

It certainly was for our business.

It took us into the millions literally designers already spend hours sourcing those perfect pieces.

So why not manage to purchase those items for your client and make a profit on them along the way?

You're in creating an entirely new income stream.

And one of the most effective ways to reduce clients shopping you is you have to lean into trade only

and custom pieces that they cannot find and cannot get anywhere else.

So they reduce the comparison shopping, they reinforce your expertise and they support the design.

And then they also support your profit.

But procurement isn't about pushing projects.

I know a lot of designers don't want to be sales people.

You already are a salesperson.

You've already educated the client on the pieces that you selected and then fabrics and the durability.

And and all of those good things you already did sell it.

They're ready to buy it.

But now they can also support your profits.

So procurement isn't about sales.

It's about complementing the vision and serving the clients fully.

That's full service interior design and a CEO doesn't just track sales.

They also track the profitability.

As I mentioned, and you got to go back and research every single project you've already done

to know which projects were the most profitable and which ones were the most efficient or felt the most

efficient, where time and money was lost.

And then we're going to lean in.

You got to lean into those areas that were the most profitable.

They might not be the most sexy.

But they were the most profitable.

And that is how your business is going to mature.

All right, where to start?

Baby steps.

You're thinking, Laura, oh my God, this is too much.

I get it.

But where do I start?

Baby steps, friends, baby steps.

Here it is.

Small steps, real action.

I want you to write down the salary that you need to support your lifestyle.

And I want you to know what your P&L looks like if you don't already.

And I want you to review it.

And then what I want you to do from March is figure out what it costs to run your business every month and every

year. So you're going to do monthly at all.

It just pull out all your visa statements, all your bank statements, master car, whatever you use.

You're going to write down things that cost you monthly and then go through your year and figure out what

else comes up throughout the year that also cost you money to get your yearly amount to buy that by 12.

That's going to be your goal in profits for the rest of the 2026 year.

Make one decision that you've been avoiding.

Is it raising your minimums?

Is it saying no to a misaligned project?

That's a real simple one.

I want you to track your time for one week.

Honestly, track your time.

Don't skimp.

Don't shave.

Don't say I talked too much to the client because I did that all the time and I'll skim an hour here and a little bit there.

Track everything you've done right down to phone calls, track it all.

The only thing I always tell the girls here, I don't need to know when you went to the bathroom.

Like I don't need to know that there was five minutes, but if that's what you want, you do that because sometimes you realize you're going to the

bathroom a lot.

Maybe you got to check something out.

That's what I want you to do this week.

I want you to I want you to do those this month.

Next month, I would like you to go back and look at all your past jobs for the last year and figure out your

profitable percentage amount and what that looked like.

Lastly, I would love for you to create a one hour reoccurring monthly meeting with yourself, your CEO

meeting to review those numbers, review your capacity and review your priorities.

This is real simple.

Those are simple things you can do that are going to help you with your business.

Here's the call to action.

I'm going to leave you with this because I'm over talked.

This was not supposed to be a 35 minute podcast today.

Profitability is what fuels your creativity.

It's going to fund your freedom and it is going to keep your busy, your business, your busy business.

Alive, you deserve to be paid for the value that you bring to every project and you don't have to do

this alone.

I don't know anyone running a successful business that didn't get help along the way.

So if you're ready to go deeper and you're ready to build with guidance instead of guessing,

there's always mentorship hours with me or anybody.

There's a lot of us in the industry that are willing to help the next generation coming up.

So you don't have to take as long to figure it out and you can be profitable faster and sooner than we

all did it.

And second, the profit academy is going to be opening the next few weeks.

So I will be posting the dates and putting it on the Instagram and on the website.

So if you have any interest in diving deeper into all of this because this is, I'm not joking.

This is like just the tip of the iceberg.

And I know it's overwhelming.

And I know it's a lot, but I promise you it is empowering.

It's going to help you have confidence in yourself and in your business and it will change your future.

I don't know how to say that more genuinely than that.

It will change your future.

The knowledge that has taken myself and other people in our industry decades to learn is priceless.

I wish that there was podcasts and like all the things that are now available at our fingertips,

couldn't be better, couldn't be more fantastic.

And I wish all of this existed.

Sometimes I think the what I play the what if games with myself, how I wonder what I could have done and what I could have built with this knowledge sooner,

but you can't go back.

You can only go forward and you only can learn from moving forward.

So again, I derail, but you are always welcome to book mentorship hours with me.

I love helping other designers and decorators.

And that can all be booked on the website.

You can book a time that works for you and we can have an hour conversation.

You don't have to go it alone, why struggle when there are answers from those that have gone before you.

And anyway, I hope you found this empowering.

I hope you found this CEO, mine, shift, interesting.

If you did, I'd love to hear from you, but a free way to support this show is by leaving us a rating.

Hopefully five stars on Apple podcasts or Spotify or anywhere you listen to this podcast.

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We have thousands of listeners every week, but only a quarter of you follow the show.

So it would be really great to know what's resonating and what's not and who's really listening.

So I appreciate that free support more than you know.

And I hope to hear you and see you here next week to listen to the next one.

And I'll promise I'll caffeinate.

I'll caffeinate beforehand.

Have a good week.