As far back as she can remember, Isabel Ladd has always had a maximalist approach to life—whether it was her vibrantly patterned wardrobe or her larger-than-life personality, which drew her to Los Angeles to study and pursue acting. Midway through college, however, a stroll through a graduate school fair changed the course of her career.

“Someone stopped me and said, ‘That’s a cool jacket—did you make it?’ And I said, ‘No, but I can,’” the Lexington, Kentucky–based designer tells host Kaitlin Petersen on the latest episode of Trade Tales. “She was like, ‘You have an eye for textiles; you must really like textile design,’ and I was like, ‘What’s that?’”

As it turned out, that “someone” was at the fair recruiting students to attend the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. Before long, Ladd had transferred to the school and enrolled in its textile design program. Upon graduation, she got married, moved back to her home state of Kentucky, and promptly put her skills to work by starting a dressmaking business. With a home of her own, however, she soon realized she had a stronger passion for transforming interiors—and by 2015, Isabel Ladd Interiors was born.

The business got off to a busy start. A few years in, however, Ladd began to feel that something was off: Her beginner-designer rates weren’t matching up with the years of experience she’d worked hard to accumulate, and the administrative tasks necessary to run a firm were bogging down her creativity. In the end, she realized a refresh was in order—including new rates, a client-facing guide to her firm’s processes, and the onboarding of a chief operations officer who could free her up to reconnect with her creative spirit.

Elsewhere in the episode, Ladd shares how she knows when it’s time to raise her rates, why her team includes a dedicated social media expert, and what it took to put together the aforementioned handbook.

Crucial insight: When the designer was a one-person team, entire days were eaten up on tasks like answering emails and calculating shipping on a large order. In search of referrals for an entry-level assistant, she reached out to Ashlee Harris, then the vice president of an advertising agency she had done set-design work for. Harris responded with an offer to be her chief operating officer. “If I had hired an assistant, they would have slowed me down, I would have stayed small, and I would have been managing someone [with little experience]. Someone with a bigger title, a bigger paycheck, bigger benefits—they come with that experience,” says Ladd. “I can do better design work because I’m not doing the logistics. … Therefore, I am able to get more design jobs at the level that I want.”

Key quote: “By raising my rates, the clients then expect more of me. There’s a strategy behind it: I’ve evolved as a designer, so I raised myself to meet that rate.”

This episode was sponsored by Surya and The Shade Store. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.