On the Ask Us Anything podcast, BOH editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen taps former Trade Tales guests to answer real, confidential designer questions, offering a safe space to discuss business challenges. Have a question of your own to ask? Send an email to start the conversation.

This week, Ashley Hughes, the founder of Dallas-based Muse Noire Interiors, joins Ask Us Anything to answer a question from a fellow designer who is feeling stuck. She launched her firm with a familiar strategy—casting a wide net and saying yes to everything—but while setting the bar low helped her secure early clients, it was never her long-term game plan. Now, she wants to reach the next level of clientele.

Hughes jumps in with advice on looking both inward and outward to connect with the right clients—from auditing your existing clientele to creating content that reflects the client you want to attract and finding the vendors that align with your ideal demographic.

Crucial insight: According to Hughes, networking with next-level clients should go beyond knocking on doors around your neighborhood—in fact, she recently flew to Art Basel in Miami, and found herself pitching her services to the leader of a major tech company. The circumstances might have been a stroke of luck, but connecting the content of his keynote with the value of good design in her pitch was the result of thorough preparedness on her part. “Put yourself in the room, and see what kind of magic you can make in that room,” she says.

Key quote: “This is the absolute best time on a calendar to get your shit together—to switch it up, to raise the prices, to recalibrate your voice to figure out what’s so different demographic-wise—from the people I’ve been working with to the people I want to work with.”

This episode was sponsored by Four Hands and Crypton. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.