Across six seasons of Trade Tales, dozens of interior designers have shared nearly every possible high and low that can unfold in the process of running a design business. They’ve discussed securing clients, setting rates, scaling up, and the countless other hurdles faced by design firm founders—and now, they’re using what they’ve learned to help you solve your biggest business challenges.
This week, BOH is launching a new companion podcast called Ask Us Anything, in which editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen taps former Trade Tales guests to answer real designer questions about building a better design business. Some weeks, guests will be workshopping a crisis; in others, they’ll take a step back to talk about the big picture. Either way, no question is out of bounds—and the caller’s identity will be kept confidential to create a safe space to air frustrations and share fears.
To kick things off, New York–based designer Courtney McLeod joins the show to answer a question from a fellow designer who’s been in business for herself for about a year. At this point, she knows what a successful project should look like—but without a clear process in place, she often finds herself searching her notes for the next step.
McLeod jumps in with advice on how to break down the existing workflow into a step-by-step procedure, why it’s important to maintain both internal and client-facing systems, and why her own process is a living document that continues to evolve alongside her firm.
Crucial insight: When it comes to establishing processes, one of McLeod’s biggest pieces of advice is to first document every single step it takes to see a project through from start to finish. It may sound tedious, but it’s often key to understanding your firm’s sticking points. “Part of the problem is, when something goes wrong, it can feel very amorphous [and] overwhelming,” she says. “When you start to drill down, then it becomes measurable bits. It becomes things that are achievable. That’s really important, because if you only stay at a bigger-problem level, it can feel like, ‘I’ll never figure out how to solve this,’ when maybe it’s actually these five small steps that are how you solve that bigger problem.”
Key quote: “In writing down that step-by-step, I found that some of the anxiety went away. I wish I could go back and tell myself: ‘Write it down, take a breath—it doesn’t all have to be done right now. You can be learning and figuring this out and still be really successful, because every project, you’re learning and improving.’ That’s why it’s so important for these to be living documents: They need to be able to change and grow with you.”
Ask Us Anything will alternate Wednesdays with the Trade Tales podcast.
This episode was sponsored by Four Hands and Crypton. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
