Creativity to Profit: Design Business Tips

Speaker 1: [Music] we talk a lot about is that mindset of knowing that you can do this I think our mindset really holds us back in the sense that we don't dream big enough yeah we have this dream it's out there but can I really turn this into a $10 million business absolutely you can I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the Shep podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you you and the she built it Community I also love a good workout and dose of selfcare magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the sheilon podcast thank you for joining us Jackie what inspired you to start and create behind the design I saw this need within the industry I ended up going back to school because I burned out and I became an interor designer and after working at three different architecture firms and teaching at the local design College I realized there was a disconnect between where we are within college and graduating and what we're doing professional development wise when we get out and running our own business and as much as I wanted to teach and share that knowledge behind the designs born out of that is that not everybody has time to go back to college or take a course and so I wanted to create that educational professional development arm that went beyond some of the things within the design Community I was seeing there's a lot of professional development around products and how to use those products but there wasn't anything around at the time how do we run our business how do we grow a business how do I hire people how do I manage people so that's how it started with professional development and how do we really help other people and then that involved in okay let's also offer some services to help them as well because it is really hard as a solar preneur or as you're growing a business to do that all on your own we have different courses and different educational modules we offer a lot of education for free I call them the diyers the people that are getting out there and starting how do I Market my company how do I find new clients but we're also a marketing firm so we focus on content and we help the design and construction industry because this audience has this great amount of content they don't even realize it a lot of times times they'll go what do I post on social media oh my goodness you have so much great content and so how do you get that content out there across all your channels so what does that look like and what's the best strategy that you need to go after your target audience and to be really focused with that that's so true I always look at people in food and real estate and think they have endless amounts of things to be able to yeah exactly and I it's crazy how many people I've talked to I don't think I have anything to say oh you have so much to talk about and share there's so many good things to talk about yeah it's so interesting have you always had a background in design or a love of design I have I was in corporate marketing for a long time I was in spent about 70 years helping small medium businesses as a marketing consultant and I've really burned out and a lot of the lessons I teach now are around that experience that I had I was a solopreneur didn't know how to ask for help I didn't know how to grow Beyond myself I was really lost and I burned out and so when I looked at okay what do I want to do with that next step of my life my kids were getting older what do I want to try and design was the thing that kept coming back because I loved it I loved doing things around my own house and so I thought I would go into residential design and ended up going into commercial interior design because I really could relate to that because I had that business background and it made more sense how people work how they function in a space how do you make make those spaces more efficient so yeah you want to Brand it you want it to be beautiful but you also need to work in it in a functional way and so that's how I went down that path and it was really fun for a long time and it's so true because a lot of times we want to do the thing within our business but the business side of it is difficult I want to design beautiful things but having to do with the paperwork and the invoicing and like you said how do I map out my marketing and how do I find new clients that can be the challenging part and I hear this all the time I started my business because I wanted to design more I wanted to pick my clients the problem with that is that you're really only designing about 20% of the time and the other 80% of the time is Marketing sales operations bookkeeping all the things that they don't prepare you to do and so that's where we talk about like we have one course it's hobby to profitability how do you grow a business Beyond yourself when I say hobby because so many designers think they're going out and they're going to do this and say hey I'm going to design and do all these great projects I want to work on but the reality is they get out and they just created a really hard job for themselves that takes a lot more work a lot more effort a lot more stress if you're not working you're not making money so yeah you can still make some money but you're not really growing a business per se and so we like talk a lot about that if okay your business is its own entity and how do you create that beyond your own self and grow that making a business from your hobby if you can get the operation side on your side then you don't really feel like you're working every day because you're doing something that you love that is exactly it is it it feels so good to wake up every morning and go do something that you actually want to do versus dreading it and it's hard to believe that people still wake up and dread going to work cuz I wake up every day excited to get up and I have new ideas and fresh ideas and that's what really makes your work meaningful is when you care about it that you want it to grow and you want to see it prosper and help people and your zone of Genius yeah I love that thinking about your zone of Genius we all have our strengths and sometimes it's hard to hone in on that and then it's hard to delegate at times too oh it's so hard to delegate because especially when you're running a business and people always say oh business isn't personal what is personal when you're putting in all this strength and energy into a business it is to some degree and so you have to step back from that and go okay I get that this is my passion and this is my business but you really have to take a second and go okay hold on how do we grow this Beyond me and the biggest thing I learned is asking for help and getting that help and just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you're the best person to do it and I'll give you a great example of that HTML and websites I know how to design websites I know how to to do the HTML am I the best person to do that no because I'm actually really slow at it so I do the design and then I have a tech person who actually does all the backend HTML because she can do it so much faster than I can do it I know what content needs to go in what it needs to look like but she can do that a lot faster than I can and it's a better use of my time working on my zone of genius and her working on her zone of genius and so when we ask for help we often especially women I think we think oh it's a sign of weakness or I can do it all and it's not that you can't do it all you just don't have to do it all and so why not ask for some help and get the help you need in the areas that maybe you don't enjoy or maybe that you just need extra help with and that's so true and I found myself asking coaches because sometimes you want to learn a skill but if you were to try to sift through all the videos online could teach yourself but if you hire a coach for an hour it jumps you that much farther ahead 100% and that's something we should be doing a better job of I love learning but at the end of the day asking somebody who's already been there being in the room with people that are already 10 steps ahead of you learning from your community that's really those shortcuts that you need and so it's not just about continuously learning it's also about who do you know and who can help you and give you some advice that they've learned the people before you and that are 10 steps ahead of you I promise they have gone through some of the problems you have gone through hitting their head against the wall and so why not learn from them and coaches are great I have two coaches and one of them is very much related to sales and one of them has to do as mindset and energy and I appreciate both of them because they give me different perspectives that's so true and it's such a help because we are so in it that at times it's hard to look at ourselves and see what we need to do next I joke all the time I'm like oh I have brilliant ideas every day but do I really I really don't have those brilliant ideas and so it's so good to be able to run ideas and share those things especially if you're a small company we have employees we have contractors that help us but just to have somebody else who's also thinking positively and wants to see you succeed in a good way and being able to bounce those IDE ideas off of is so helpful and help you stay really focused because as entrepreneur we struggle with staying focused we come up with those great ideas you got to really stay focused I tell people this all the time with their brand you need to share your brand whether it be your personal brand your company brand over and over until you're absolutely sick of it and then you keep sharing it more because everyone else isn't hearing it the way you're hearing it and it's the same thing you really have to stay focused on where you're going and a coach really helps with that what do you think is the most important element of leadership when scaling and growing a business communication as leaders and you and I talked about this a little bit before coming from a corporate world where we didn't have a lot of great leaders from female perspective being open being vulnerable sharing your knowledge those are good leadership qualities and so rather than thinking okay women around me men doesn't matter but as a leader I want to share as much as my knowledge as I can to help you grow because as I have my team grow stronger that pushes me to be stronger and so to me that's leadership that's when you are more concerned about everybody else around you growing because as a community as a company you're growing together yeah and it's so much better when a leader is in it with their teams yes absolutely that's really important there a vulnerability I think as Leaders just like being a parent we're supposed to have all the answers we don't we definitely don't Unfortunately they don't come with books but you have to be somewhat vulnerable too and ask for help within your own staff as well and your community and Leadership isn't just about the people it's not title it's not people that work for you directly you can be a leader in a community in networking group on your social channels just sharing knowledge is a huge part of being a leader what advice do you have for someone that wants to turn their hobby into a business what we talk a lot about is that mindset of knowing that you can do this I think our mindset really holds us back in the sense that we don't dream big enough yeah we have this dream it's out there but can I really turn this

Speaker 1: where we're going and staying focused yeah all of those things are so important and the systems whenever something isn't flowing right I think okay let's go back let's do a tech and a communication review where are the bottlenecks why isn't this flowing properly but those things can be overlooked sometimes and then today we're inundated with so many different things it's hard to not look at every shiny new I love the platforms and all the tech and so I have to dial myself back and say okay I'm not GNA make a jump right now I'm not going to dive into learning something new quite yet because you can do that almost every other day now that is the hardest thing is not going off staying really focused on what your goals are and where you're going is really important I truly believe that you really have to know your goals and you have to break those down and go okay this is our goal for the Year this is what we need to accomplish each month this is what we need to accomplish each week and this is what we need to accomplish each day and I have an idea book that I just put down my ideas they're the things that are going to have to hold off right now but let's really focus on what is the priorities for this period of time and then when we reach there then we can add more into it but it is one of the biggest things as entrepreneurs is that it's really easy to get distracted by shiny syndrome when you're interested in it it is hard to but working working backwards is so smart and I love your idea book because it's amazing when we do stream of Consciousness what comes out and that it's really important to do that because in addition to having all the shiny new tech toys we're always doing something so for me I almost have to schedule time to do nothing and it seems like your idea book is where you just let your mind go and whatever comes out exactly and I heard this scheduling that time whether it be an hour to write down your ideas and brainstorm those ideas that's okay and get that out of your brain so you can focus on what you want to work on and then when you come back to that you have that idea it's really important as a leader that you continuously are strategizing and looking at what is to come in the future but we still need to focus on what's going to drive Revenue right now so it really depends on where you're at in your career revenue is vital in staying the course and making sure that you're going in the direction you're wanting to go is really important yeah we've talked a lot about business today magic happens when we focus on the part of our business and ourself that brings us joy what do you do for you to make sure that you're finding and living your joy this is one of the things that I am challenged with because I love what I do I love going to the gym I love swimming I do really take the time to spend time with my family and try to back out of my thoughts so that when I'm with them one of my favorite things is sitting on the porch with my husband I have one son but just sitting out there saying hi to the neighbors talking about our days it's my favorite time especially in the summer time when it's really beautiful out and the fall and spring and being able to spend time in that moment that's where I get a lot of my joy the quiet time and you mentioned reading books what are you reading anything I am always reading constantly and so right now I am reading The Ultimate Sales Machine it's an older book that was updated but it's actually really good so far right now yeah it's so funny I have a sales book I don't even know if you can buy it any it's if you're not out selling you're being outs sold I think is the name of it and it's funny because when I was at the Dodgers they brought in the author and I had the book highlighted and like Pages were and I'm like were you signed my book I'm like clearly I've read it but can you read those things before falling asleep because if I read a sales book or a motivational book before I I go to sleep I am awake all night and now with the twins I'm reading things like Colleen Hoover because it's a fast read that I can read and not think too much before I fall asleep because my days with the twins are non-stop till 10: p.m. I spend 20 minutes in the morning so I have a whole morning routine coffee and I be 20 minutes of a non-fiction book I always have a book with me when I'm standing in line but at night time I have to read a cozy mystery or something because that relaxes me I'm trying to get away from Netflix shows because I want to know what's going to happen next and then I stay up way too late so during the week I'm trying to read more books and then on the weekends binge the the fun shows right now it's baseball season so we watch a lot of baseball oh yeah we watch a lot of baseball too though which relaxing though too it's not that'll put you to sleep I love baseball and as we were talking about we are baseball fam so yeah I love baseball season we get to watch baseball and sometimes you're kind of like okay if it gets boring I just sit there and do a puzzle read or whatever and keep looking up to see what's going on but I I always love that from a sales perspective when I would take clients to the stadium because it's moved slow enough that you could have a really good conversation not like basketball or football where you're constantly really have to intently watch the game it's little more relx more relaxed yeah yeah exactly thank you for joining us today please share with us how and where we can find you sure our website is behind theedesign co.com and that is our Channel Instagram behind the design on LinkedIn we're on YouTube and we're also on Facebook and Pinterest thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave