Interior Designers: Your Business Operations Are Costing You Money (Jessica Harling Has the Fix)
How to transform mental chaos into documented systems that work automatically, so you can focus on design while your business runs profitably
You know that feeling of juggling everything mentally - client details, project timelines, vendor information - while trying to focus on actual design work? You're not alone, and you're definitely not imagining how exhausting this approach has become.
Interior design is a crazy business with bazillions of intricate details, and when you're keeping all your processes locked up in your head, you're making it harder on yourself while limiting how much your business can grow. In this episode of the Interior DesignHer podcast, interior design staffing & operations expert Jessica Harling reveals how interior designers can get all those mental checklists out of their heads and into systems that work automatically.
Jessica identifies the critical challenge most designers face: you went to school to learn design, not business operations. After working in her family's fourth-generation window covering business and combining that experience with theater training that taught her how people think, Jessica discovered that creative minds need structured approaches to business management - they just need systems that make sense for how designers actually work.
Business reality confirms it - while you're incredibly talented at creating beautiful spaces, keeping operational processes in your head creates stress, limits growth, and makes it nearly impossible to train team members effectively. The designers who build sustainable, profitable practices get their processes documented and systematic.
"The biggest mistake is thinking you have to keep everything in your brain," Jessica explains. "When I work with designers, we pull all those processes out of their heads and turn them into visual maps they can follow and teach to others. That's when businesses really start to scale."
Whether you're currently managing everything solo or struggling to train new team members, Jessica's strategic insights will transform how you approach your business operations - and ultimately, how much time you have to focus on the design work you actually love.
Key Takeaways
Interior designers often resist documenting processes because their visionary mindset focuses on creativity rather than systematic operations
The "life of the client" mapping process helps designers visualize their entire business operation from inquiry to project completion
Keeping processes in your head limits business growth and creates unnecessary stress for both you and your team members
Designer "squirrel moments" during planning conversations actually help create more effective systems when properly channeled
Documented systems allow you to train team members systematically instead of repeating the same instructions constantly
Strategic operations improvements directly impact profitability by reducing errors, saving time, and enabling business growth
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Watch the podcast…
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
01:15 Origin Story
03:25 What's Up With Interior Designers?
05:30 How An Operations Nerd is Made
08:12 Transformation Story
16:06 THE BUSINESS OF YOUR INTERIOR DESIGN BUSINESS
17:21 OPERATIONS THAT MAKE $$$
19:11 WHEN TO ASK FOR HELP
22:15 EMPLOYEES & OPERATIONS - A REAL LIFE STORY
25:56 YOUR FIRST HIRE
29:33 DIFFERENT WAYS TO HIRE
30:58 $$$$$
33:08 LEGAL ISSUES
37:10 HIRING & BUSINESS CULTURE
40:10 ONBOARDING A NEW HIRE
43:09 A SYSTEM FOR TEACHING SYSTEMS
45:39 HOW TO CREATE SYSTEMS & PROCESSES
50:13 LET'S TALK ABOUT THE MONEY
52:55 NEED MORE TIME?
55:18 TECHNOLOGY
1:03:59 GROWING PAINS
1:07:57 MORE BANG FOR THE BUCK
1:10:38 WHAT'S IT LIKE WORKING WITH JESSICA?
1:12:49 THOSE UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
1:14:07 RECRUITING
1:16:04 CONNECT WITH JESSICA
Read the transcript…
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Jessica, before we dive into all the tactics and tips and tricks and all that kind of stuff, can you, tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up working with interior designers?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, absolutely. Well, way, way back, I was in theater, and since not a lot of theater, folks really make it to the big time, the big screen, I found myself in, getting into a family business, and we did window coverings, in the Chicagoland area.
I was fourth generation in the business. My great grandfather started it 1939, still around today. And through there, you know, I learned a lot about the design industry, and one of the, divisions of the company was both working with interior designers and doing some interior design.
More on the decorating side, I would say, you know, helping interior designers finish the accessorizing portion of it and, the window coverings or, you know, any of those kind of finishing touches, but providing them a workroom and things like that.
So I just fell in love with the industry and the beauty of the design, having kind of that theater and that art background. But then about 2012, I started to be able to go to conferences. My family was always big on education, and they wanted me to get out and see High Points and go meet other interior designers, other business owners.
And from that, it just kind of naturally snowballed. Where I started speaking in 2012 at these conferences, that started getting a little bit of buzz. And then I was approached by, a business owner out in California that said, I just need for you to come consult with my business.
And it kind of started from there. So it was part time for a while, and then it became full time. And I officially opened behind the design in 2018, really to expand and be able to help more businesses and, build the foundation of the business from there.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So maybe once you started working with those initial clients, or maybe from the discussions you were having at conferences like Hype and High Point, and places like that. What were things about interior design businesses that you were seeing? Like things that you could come in and help them fix?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: eah. So, one of the roles that I had, the big role in my family business was head of operations in hr. And so I was the people and process manager. And when I went to these conferences, I don't know if you remember this, but conferences always used to be sales and marketing, Sales and marketing, sales and marketing.
And it was great because everyone needs information on sales and marketing. But then in between the hallways, in between the sessions at night in the bar, everyone is complaining about their people and process. And I was able to go, well, I have some tools.
This is how I hire. This is how I put together, you know, the processes and make it easier for everyone to love what we're doing and keep them there long term. So it became this, this buzz behind the scenes in these conversations where I saw them not knowing how to find people, knowing how to train them.
Because it was such a complicated industry, especially because they, they went to school for it. You know, in their mind, they were like, well, I can't just give you the same schooling that I just went to. So how do I train a new hire that may or may not have gone to school for this? And then how do I keep them long term?
You know, what are some of those problems? And that came down to process. You know, not having processes in place had people burning out. They had their employees, going, well, I don't know. And then the owner gets frustrated and says, well, I told you a thousand times. And then there's the resentment.
So it's the snow. And there's simple, tactics to at least start to like, stop the bleeding. So that's where I got really excited that I can help people in interior design.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: How did you become good at doing operations and hiring and all of that? You know, business behind the business stuff?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, part of it was just trial and error. Big, big part of it. But the other interesting that I've learned over the years is my theater background is so well suited for the HR world.
And in fact, half of the people I went to school with are actually recruiters or HR managers because they get people and they understand what motivates them. What, you know, gets them frustrated or tired. And so you start to build out systems for that and not to over please them, but to, to go, okay, we're problem solving here.
And the other aspect of that theater background was you do what it takes to get the job Done. And you sometimes, like, you don't know what the resolution is. You don't know what the instructions are. You just have to figure it out. And so through that, through that mindset and then the practice of building the family business, I was able to come up with what I felt was really repeatable systems and a structure to be able to teach others because I was a teacher.
And so it kind of all melded it together.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And because you. You were coming from a family business that had existed for decades, The business was already there. Like, you could work yourself into the structure. And I mean, if we're just talking residential designers, I mean, most of the businesses start out as a solo designer, you know, hangs out their shingle and never received any business education at school, so they're having to learn everything on the fly.
So you've kind of got a nice kind of combinations of things. Like when you started first working with people, you're like, I know how a business is supposed to work because our business has been operating for decades. And, plus, I understand what you do.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And that's when I thought about creating behind the design. I was like, I have to stay working with these designers. I mean, it's the passion of the industry that keeps me there. But then, being able to pave the road for others, it's kind of a core value of mine, is that teacher mentality.
I don't want people to have the same battle scars that I have. You know, you get battle scars. That's good, you know, for everyone. But there's so many things that I can teach that just won't be a headache, hiring or training or, you know, onboarding and such.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right. Could you give us an example of a client or two of yours that, like, where they started out, things that were wrong, how you went in and fixed and how it worked out for them.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, absolutely. First person kind of comes to mind is, you know, when I start to talk to interior designers about their business, there's a couple of key questions that helps me figure out if you've got a people problem, a process problem.
And so some of those questions, are what's your revenue size compared to how many employees you have? What's your turnaround time on your projects? And what's your profitability level? And through those four questions, I can know if they're overstaffed, if they have that process problem.
So in asking one of these designers this, you know, she was overstaffed, compared to the revenue level that she was at, she was overstaffed by two people. So paying them each $60,000 plus was a big savings for her.
But she was overstaffed. And this is very common because people, business owners will add people to their team when they feel like they're at their, their max. And it's a feeling, it's not actually facts.
And so that's why looking at that revenue to employee difference can tell us, if you have a process problem or if it's the people. So the second part of that then, when I asked her, what's your turnaround time? She laughed and she said, well, gosh, with interior designers, like, we never have an end of a project.
It just keeps going on and on and on for years and years and years. And I'm like, well, yeah, I get that you might have a repeat client or add on to new rooms, but there should be some finality. There should be like, all right, we're done with this phase. Yay. Let's celebrate. You know, here's, a picture of the room or whatever.
Like, there needs to be some finale even in your own books, even in your own team, so it doesn't feel like it just keeps drawing out. So her average was anywhere between, like 13 to 18 months of a project to take.
And she did full construction stuff, but still it was, what I consider too long to say. There's like a finishing point. And so when we actually looked at it, she took those construction projects down to about seven to eight months, depending on what the full capability was.
She's doing the whole house. That's a whole nother thing. But if it's a couple of rooms, remodels, things like that, we should be able to get that done in a three to four month period. So. So we cut her turnaround time in half. And in doing that, we outlined new processes. We set up software so she could manage it.
Manage it. We trained the people on how to do those processes and work those softwares. And then we were able to hire a new person that was more,
capable of managing a larger volume and managing that process instead of just adding bodies to solve the bandwidth issue. So it was a really big transformation in bringing down the cost of their salaries, bringing down the turnaround time so she could actually turn jobs faster and get new clients onboarded.
And then because of that, everyone knew where we were at with each of the phases. And there wasn't this like, okay, who did what and what's next? And they're tripping over themselves. So it was, that was one of my favorites because we just kind of did it all with them.
But breaking that apart, that's the biggest thing that we do, is we cut down that turnaround time, we cut down salary costs, and we make that more productive to where they need to be.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So what was that like? And if you can speak from both, like your point of view and from their point of view, because I'm sure like you're asking them, you're taking them through it, but you're asking them to completely transform how they've done their business.
Yeah. You've cut this process almost in half. There had to be a little pain and fear from their point of view, I would guess.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, for sure. Well, I think the biggest thing is, you know, with her and with other designers, they're visionaries, so they've got the ideas and they have the framework. They know what they're doing because they've been schooled in it. They've had a business for a while. So our meetings is actually just pulling it out of their brain.
And a part of that is knowing what questions to ask to pull it out of them, but then documenting it. So it is their system. We just fine tune that system to go. Well, you know, what if you actually scheduled this a week ahead of time and pre scheduled it, you just shaved off a week of your timeline.
So it's looking at what you're doing now and just resequencing the events to actually shorten the process.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So was that, a complete surprise to them or maybe something that they. Yeah, we know we should have done that, but maybe they didn't have the tools. Whether it's, it's like the tools up here or the actual, like, you know, your experiences.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, for her in particular, it was, she wasn't detailed. You know, she's a visionary. She's on the go. She's big picture. She wants to do the design stuff sitting down and creating spreadsheets. Not her jam, sitting down, writing a procedure. She just doesn't want to do it.
And then outside of it, she doesn't have the time to do it. She's running from appointment to appointment, managing the team. So we're almost like a fractional coo where we take the visionary goals and the ideas and then go, all right, here's the plan.
And we'll help you with the plan. We've got writers, graphic designers. Like, we actually create those things for them so they don't have to add more time to their plate. So yeah, going into it, Fear Wise was more. Well, I know I need your help. I don't know how this is going to work.
And because we start with a discovery process, I don't even know how it's going to work. I'm going to discover in the first 30 days what we need to do and how we need to create the plans. It's super customized to each business and that's what I think people end up if they do have a fear Loving is it is customized to them.
It's not just here's a template that's going to fit everyone because we all have pride in what we're doing. We built a specific image of our own and everything should reflect that. From the people to the process.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: To my mind, kind of reflects what interior designers do for their clients. Yeah, right. They, they take like, you know, they understand how to renovate a house and all the, the logistical things that have to happen and all the design things that have to happen.
But at the end of the day, it has to speak to the homeowners. Right. So that kind of seems like what you're doing. You understand how operations work and how hiring work, but you somehow make it work for the designer, the team, and, and what they're good at and what they're known for.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, exactly. And we then work with the whole team. So it's not just the burden of coach talking to business owner. Then business owner has the stress of having to communicate that to everyone else. Like no, no, I'm cutting that out.
I'm talking to the team directly. It's like we're on their team. They can call us if they need to. So we're just another leadership member on the team for however long that implementation takes. And then they're set up and they can get to the next level without us because it's set up and ready to go.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Kind of circling back to what you said earlier about, when you were at things like High Point and it was mostly about marketing and sales. Obviously the parts of an interior design firm, there's the design side of it and obviously the designers are all over that and understand that.
And to my mind, marketing isn't that big a leap because they're marketing themselves. Right. This is what makes my design firm special. And you just get that out to people and whether it's referrals or, you know, you meet people or at events or whatever, you're basically talking about the part of your business that you love to do.
The design part, yeah, but the back end stuff, the operations, the hiring, the human resources, all of that stuff. No formal education. And it seems almost like a left brain, right brain kind of thing.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Right, right. It does. It feels too tedious. Even though they may be having details, managing their client projects, even just the framework, the mindset of how to put those things together, they know what they want, but the how is what we can help with.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, fair. All right, I want to nerd out a little bit now. Not that we haven't kind of already been doing that. Specific operational differences between a highly profitable design firm and those that are struggling.
They may be great designers, but they're not making bank.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: First and foremost, it's having a process and a system. So system to me would be like a software system. Those that are struggling, they're reliable, relying on memory. They're not relying on checklists or a computer system that's going to say, hey, reminder, send your customer your billing for this week or this month.
You know, so let the system or process do a lot of that work for you so you don't have to rely on your memory because that is not perfect and it adds stress. So let your brain be free to be creative, to work with your clients.
So it's having that process, having that system, but then also knowing their numbers. So when I ask them things like what's your turnaround time on a project? They can tell me, or what are you bringing in cash flow wise? Like, are you bringing in X amount per month or per week?
Therefore, you also have to be billing X amount per week or per month. So what is that? That number cash flow to make sure that you're getting paid for the services that you're providing. So those successful ones that they have it dialed in, they have systems for billing, they have the softwares to keep track of it, and they have their people trained on those processes to execute those processes and not just willy nilly make up their own mind on how to do it.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Let's say we have, a designer who listened to this podcast and they're unsure, am I at that point yet? Do I, you know, are things going good or do I need help? Do I need to improve operations? Do I need to hire?
Are there any kind of warning signs? A designer, whether it's a solo or a small team, they, they need to change something.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes. So warning signs first can be time. Time is tricky, but that's a first layer that you can look at. So for example, you know are you working 60, 70 hour weeks and in those 60, 70 hour weeks are you actually working and being productive?
So therefore if you hired another 20 hour person, you could reduce it your work to 40 or are you wasting time in those 60, 70 hours? You know, are you taking personal appointments, getting your nails or hair and picking up the kids or doing that?
Like is it part of your personal life within those hours or straight up work hours? If it's straight up work hours, hire someone or you would start to go down that road of subcontracting or finding that out. But time can also be tricky with process.
So if within those 60, 70 hours you're working really hard, but not smart, you don't have a software to manage your systems, you don't have the checklists so that every customer is getting the same experience. If you don't have those, then that's where maybe you need to start having that will shave down the time, the management of the actual operations to be able to be more manageable.
Then if it creeps up in time, then you start to hire. So it's a little bit of an investigation you have to do at first, but it all starts with time. And then the second part of it is looking at time related to delivery to the customer.
So for example, you know, for some designers that may do more transactional type design, where maybe they're doing like furniture inventory where they have to get an installer to go out.
Well, if you're booked out two, three weeks, because all of your installs are occurring in those three weeks and you just can't get someone on the calendar sooner, then you may need a new installer or you need, you know, another pair of hands. So it's that same time concept, just looking at your calendar long term going, all right, how far am I booked out or how far am I booked out in new accepting new business, you know, is it going to be six or eight months until I actually can onboard a new design client?
Well, you might want to look at that. Why is that? Because you've got too many things going on, therefore you need to hire or you just can't handle it mentally and need a break. That's you know, totally different mindset thing.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I had kind of a weird conversation a couple of weeks ago with two, designers. So you've got this solo. She had been solo designer, principal designer, been doing this for years and years and years and she had hired a junior designer.
First time that she had ever hired the position. It was the daughter of A friend of hers, and she kind of looked at it as an opportunity. You know what, I would like to take on a few more projects. I can help my friend out, blah, blah, blah. And at an event, I ended up speaking with both of them at different times.
And it wasn't like they both spilled their guts, but I mean, I love operations and, and I ended up talking to them both about this. And I talked to the principal designer first and I said, well, you know, how's that going? And she says, oh, it's good, you know, I mean, there's bumps in the road.
I'm having to teach her a lot of things and, and I know for a fact that this designer has like zero operations. Like nothing has been pulled out of her brain and recorded and automated and none of it. It's all in her head. And so I'm like, okay, fine, you know, there's always going to be a, breaking in period.
And I'm like, well, you know, maybe we should look at, you know, ways of organizing those systems so that it's easier so you're not having to repeat the same things you think you're saying a thousand times. But I mean, this, this, you know, the junior designer was 22 years old.
This was her first real job. You know, I'm like, she's not going to be perfect. She's going to make mistakes. That's what's going to happen. But I said, you know, wouldn't it be nice if there was like a set of videos even that she could refer to on this job process and say, oh, if she has to watch it 10 times, she watches it 10 times until it, you know, sticks in her head.
When I spoke to the junior designer was way more interesting to me is she was frustrated because she knew she was struggling, she knew she could do better and she could sense that the, you know, the older designer was getting frustrated with her. And she's like, I don't want to be like this.
I want to be better at it. Yeah, like you too need to talk. So I went and got two glasses of wine, came back over and they didn't kill each other, so we'll see. I said, you know, I said, call me, call me back in a few weeks and, and we'll talk and let's see what happens.
But I mean, you know, that's not what I do. It's what I've done with my own businesses. Right. So I'm like, you guys need some help. Whether it's you want to try it yourself and automate a few things, or you, you know, reach out to Jessica Harling and have her look after it for you.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Exactly. Well, and it's so common. I mean, employees never expect that, They're gonna want to quit or get fired when they're hired. They're hired, they're excited, they want to learn, they want to grow. Like, you just went through this whole, like, dating period with them.
Now you're married. They're not the divorce on day one. And so we just have to give them those tools. And if we're seeing they're frustrated, we got to look internally, We've got to look at ourselves and go, what am I doing wrong? Have I given the tools? Have I given the resources?
Have it given the training? And if any of those are a, no, then you have to start there before you blame the employee and make a separation. Because if you're going through turnover and you have these junior designers and they're not sticking three, four times, the problem is the company.
It's not the people that are going in the role.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: For sure. Sticking with hiring. Okay, even. You know what? Let's. Let's stick with these. These two designers. The way she hired, I mean, part of the reason was. Was that relationship with her friend. But I'm sure, like, that first hire, it's kind of important, right?
Who you and who you hire, what role you hire for. Right. And I'm sure when you're advising them on. On this process, you've got a system for it versus just going by my gut. So can you give me an idea of what that first hire would look like and what kind of process people should be following?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing to determine is roles. So the question being, you know, who do I hire first? Really comes into what are you doing and what do you need help with? And the what do you need help with?
Question comes from, what do you enjoy doing? What are you good at doing? So usually the principal designer wants to do more of that. They want to do more client interactions, more design. You know, that side of it. So a natural first hire would be a junior designer that might help them, do some of the administrative support to that or, you know, it's not a junior designer, because some junior designers expect to design, and maybe you want them to be more admin.
Maybe it's an office manager that helps you out. So think about all of what you do and then categorize it into what you like and you're good at. So Keep that on your plate and everything else. Then you have a list of what someone could potentially do.
Once you have that list, then make sure there's no more than two max three categories of different types of activities. So for example, if that list says deliveries, installations, sourcing, order management, procurements, receiving, those categories are very different.
Install, delivery, receiving, that's a physical job. Sourcing, that's more design related. Procurement, that's more project management related. So that would be a total unicorn of a person that has three different jobs all combined in one.
You really want to see on that list what's the majority of what makes sense. So if the majority of the list is more physical, then hire an installer that can do all those physical things. If it's more administrative, then hire that admin. So you got to look at what do you want to do, what is there to do.
And then you can also figure out from that list and what you know is reasonable. How much time does that take? Is that a part time thing? Is that a full time thing? So that will get you into some directions of who you need to hire in terms of role, who you need to hire in terms of part or full time.
And then if you also want to make this decision, if they're going to be a W2, meaning they're an employee of yours, if they're going to be a 1099, so they're a contractor of yours or you work with an agency to do like a virtual assistant, those are three different avenues that you can do.
If it's a, you know, solopreneur bringing someone on for the first time, maybe you want to start with a contractor, a virtual assistant. Before you get into this really, you know, this intense marriage with someone.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: There's pros and cons of going each of those different routes. Right. Because a contract worker versus somebody who you've hired as an employee and who you share physical space with. There's going to be a different relationship there. One's more transactional and the other becomes like you said, a marriage.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, exactly. And that pro and con in the 1099, you're, you're two different businesses. So you can't control their time, you can't control how they process certain stuff. You can still control and have an expectation of customer experience.
So you can outline that in your agreement. But yeah, totally right there. Versus your W2 employee. They're going to be maybe coming to your office or you know, more regularly on call for you than what a contractor can do. And then the virtual assistant side, to me, that's good for small administrative tasks, you know, like scheduling or staticing, you know, where the furniture is at, or, creating a spreadsheet.
You know, little things like that, where if you're going to have them doing customer communication and you know, maybe going on a job site with you, that should really be more an employee versus that virtual assistant, that's super behind the scenes and, going to be remote for sure.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Financial considerations, let's jump in using those different models as well. Like, I'm sure there's different financial impacts.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes, definitely. So at a minimum, for really any one of those avenues, you want to have at least three months saved up of that salary or whatever that that cost is going to be. So if that's in the bank, it helps you not stress out about where's the next dollar going to come in from a salary perspective.
But the other thing I like to look at is worst case and best case scenario, a cash flow perspective. So if I do bring this employee on and we make a dip in sales by 20% or 50% or you know, like, what's the worst case scenario?
What would be the number in monthly, yearly sales that we couldn't go under in order to bring this person on and you know, therefore we'd have to lay them off. So that worst case, best case is a really good way, to give yourself boundaries of knowing, you know, having confidence of bringing that person on.
But the other sort of financial perspective is knowing what's competitive in your market in terms of salary, in terms of benefits, because you have to factor all of that in. You know, it's not necessarily the salary of a person.
The quick number I've always had memorized my head is it's salary plus 25%. 25% is going to be if you have a retirement plan that you're contributing to, if you have a health insurance plan that you're paying part of their premium. I fit in, you know, some of the basic technology things.
We know we're going to give them an email, you know, every single one. So it's not just $50,000 a year, it's 50,000 plus the 25% to be able to say, yes, this person's going to have all the tools and the resources that everyone else has and we need to get that from day one for them.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. There's also, I hadn't thought of this question previously, but, legal issues with hiring for those different kinds of roles. Right. Hiring A full time employee versus a virtual or a contract.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes, definitely. From a contractor standpoint, the biggest thing is we kind of touched on it, is that you can't control their business, their time. And so you cannot give them an offer letter, you cannot give them an employee manual, you know, any of those sort of like normal policy things that your company may have.
They're, they're not your employee. They are someone that is helping your business that you're paying and therefore they should have their own paperwork lined up. So when you get audited on workers comp, if you have, let's say a contractor that's doing something, some of your installations and deliveries, they need to have their own business, their own ein.
So you can say, yeah, this is a business I'm contracting with, not just this person that I, you know, I'm telling folks, they're a 1099, but really they're my employee. So there is a fine line there. With employees you do need to have certain things on file, that if you get an audit they're going to ask for, so certain tax forms.
Each state has different requirements. You need usually your federal and your state tax forms for the employee. You need, them to have an employee manual. That employee manual has to lay out all of your policies of the company.
So for example, you know something as little as, you know, how they take time off, how they request it to something big, like, you know, if they get harassed, how they, how they go about telling someone about that.
So everything should be outlined. And then things like an offer letter, a job description. We want them to know what the expectations of the role is. And so all of that, if anything ever was to go south with your employee and they were to say, they put a claim on your company to say, you know, there's some problem, I was wrongfully terminated.
You would have to provide these documents and you might even have to go as far as talking to an arbitrator or a judge and being able to back those documents. So yes, there's definitely legal things on the W2 side that your company needs to have.
And then virtual agencies. The nice part there is you're signing a contract with them and you're just contracting with them. So you just have to follow the contract terms. But you don't get, you know, like taxed on it or anything like that.
So it's, it's almost like having a 1099, but a W2 combined, they just happen to be remote.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: When you start working with a new Client, how frequently are they surprised by all of this stuff you just told us?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Very. It's usually the reaction like, man, really, I have to. It's like, yeah, you have to. And there are different, you know, in the United States in particular, there's different levels of. If you're under 10 employees, you don't really have to follow all these processes.
You should. So because you're still subject to being sued. So this protects you from all that. But beyond that, from like 10 to 50 employees, there's certain policies. Over 50 employees, there's certain policies. So it is important to understand what your state regulations are and have that incorporated into your paperwork.
But yes, always surprised, always an eye roll, always like, come on. And that's, that's why we help them with it. Because for a, lot it's not the fun stuff to deal with.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Kind of tying into the legal side of it. I'm curious about the cultural fit of hiring an employee. And I don't mean culture in terms of, you know, their culture, but I mean the business culture. Yeah, you want to bring in somebody who you think clicks with you and will be a good partner going forward.
But when it comes to hiring, you can't ask a lot of questions. There's a lot of things you should not ask. So how do we kind of work with that?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, so we have to get to the bottom of why are you asking the question like, what are you trying to obtain? So for example, with, designers or sales related roles, we may have them going on a job site. So the question becomes, how are we getting there?
So does the employee that comes on need to have their own vehicle and therefore they're going to get paid the IRS mileage rate or are we providing a vehicle? So if they're providing the employees providing the vehicle, we can't ask them, what kind of car do you drive?
That specific question. But we can ask them, how do you think you're going to, commute to the job? Or how are you going to get the samples from our showroom to the job site. So we can ask questions like that, but it's not specific to, something that can be discriminatory.
So asking them what kind of car do they drive implies if they have money or not. And so, you know, it doesn't matter if they have a Ford or a Ferrari. The point is, can you get the samples to the job site? So that's what we have to focus on is the goal of why we're asking.
Same thing with things like, are you planning on becoming pregnant? That super discriminatory question. Plus, that's just not, like, cool to ask a woman. So whatever still happens. And so why are we asking that?
We're asking because we want to know reliability. We want to know about the future of them with the company. So we can ask things like, what are some of your goals for being in a company long term? Or, you know, tell me a little bit about yourself outside of work.
Super vague. It doesn't ask if they're married, if they have kids, or any of that. How do you spend your time outside of work? They get to share. And the beauty of that question in particular, nine times out of ten, nine and a half times out of ten, they're gonna go, well, I have a husband and we have three kids.
And. And you're gonna get the information anyways because it's conversational. But you're not pigeoning, holding yourself into, like, one specific question that can be taken offensively.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Appreciated. That. That was an excellent one. Excellent answer. Good. Let's say we've got the solo designer again. And I keep choosing that because that's the hardest, right? That's. They're hiring the. For the first time. That first hire.
What would be an effective onboarding and training process look like? I realize this is probably too massive a question, but.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, well, I do. I do have a process for onboarding. And this can be applied to any role, really any design industry, and maybe even beyond. But the first four weeks are the most critical weeks. And the first two weeks I call the baby weeks, the baby weeks are like, you don't want to leave the baby alone.
Like, do not get them rolling off the couch or whatever. Like, we have to watch them at all times. That's the first two weeks. The first four weeks are just as critical because it's like you're getting your baby to grow up and be independent. So in those first four weeks, first week is process, second week is product, third week is paperwork and pricing, and fourth week is people.
And between those categories, then you fill in what is appropriate for your business. So process week, let's show them the procedures, let's show them how to get into the softwares. Let's have them shadow some people. Product, you know, what sort of products are we offering?
Do we sell furniture? Do we not sell products? And we just have a design, service, do we work with other contractors? So understanding the scope of, you know, what you deliver to a client, then you get into paperwork and pricing and Maybe they don't do estimating, but paperwork could be.
When we have a new sale, what do we do? What sort of POS do we need? You know, are we having a physical file? Is it a digital file? People are things like role playing scenarios. You know, if the customer calls and says, why is this construction taking so long?
How do we handle that? How do we respond? You know, if we get to the job site and there's a problem, we got to come up with a punch list, how are we going to relay that to the customer of what our next steps are? So it gives you a framework to the onboarding, initial training, that boot camp style training.
And after that point, then it's about managing their goals and their milestones. So I like to look at 30, 60, 90 day periods. I like to look at them six months and a year. What do I want them to have accomplished or learned by 90 days, six months or a year?
So that whole year should be onboarding. But look at it like a funnel. The first 30 days is intensive. You're with them all the time or you're constantly watching them. And then you just start to step back and step back and focus on the goals.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I'm sure like any other, task in, in the business, the more often you have to do these things, the better you'll get at it in terms of like personal efficiency. But also then tweak your systems of how you teach your systems to a new hire. Right?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, absolutely. And like you mentioned earlier, which is such a brilliant idea is the videos. You know, if you're going to be training someone, take some videos while you're training or have them write the procedure down if the procedure is not currently written. You know, your homework from this training is to write down what you learned.
And so now you can start to compile a procedure from, you know, all the things that you're working on with them. So it is about the tools and making it a little bit easier every time you do it.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right. I remember years ago on a podcast, somebody talking when, when loom became a thing and suddenly everybody's like, oh, you've got to do these loom videos for your, you know, your SOP manuals. And I remember talking to a designer and they were saying like, you know, I don't want to spend money on this.
And I'm like, you don't have to. Like, you've got zoom. You do zoom calls, right? This is during COVID I'm like, you do zoom calls. Okay, do a Zoom call to nobody, record the thing and just do your videos there and then, and then we'll chop them up and those will be your, your operations videos. And when and if they're no good, we do them again.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Well, and even I'll do that, you know, with like plod. Today is like the big thing with designers, right? You can just record the transcript, have that transcript turn into procedure. Better yet, throw it into ChatGPT and say, hey, here's the transcript from our meeting.
Create a procedure out of it so you can utilize these tools that are, you know, right at your fingertips. It doesn't have to be as hard as you think.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And if you don't like being in front of the camera, like right now, you could do that exact same thing with the ChatGPT. Plug a transcript into it now feed it into like an AI video creation thing and it'll make like a crazy little animated person giving all your, your videos.
That's fun to try whatever you want. Sticking, with operations. So if we come back to that solopreneur designer who's been literally every bit of their operations, they have systems.
But they're just locked up here. How do you pull them out of their brain, Organize those thoughts into a coherent system and then record them, implement them. All of that like I'm curious about. Let's start with the first step of pulling it out of their heads.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah. So any new client that we have goes through our discovery period. And so, first of all month, every week we're having these hour meetings where I'm looking at every aspect of their business.
So it's not just tell me what your current processes are. We'll talk about processes, we'll talk about your financials, your marketing strategy, your sales strategy, your people, like all of it. And then from that, from understanding your goals, we come up with the implementation Plan.
And it's just literally a, year to two year plan of all the things that I think the business needs. From there. Then these meetings, they're very conversational. So we're tackling certain projects at a time. And I always start with what I call the life of the client process.
We need to know the whole experience the customer goes through from the moment they get in touch with your business all the way through to the end. And we create this life of the client map. It's very visual that says, okay, here's our phases.
We've got a new inquiry. Then we get into the sales consultation, then we get a contract going, then we start the design concept and whatever those phases are broken into, we list those out. Then we list out what are the current steps.
So I'm talking to them, asking them questions, and it's very, if you actually read the transcript, my team is always like, oh my God, you guys go in circles. But it's, that's how designers talk. They're like squirrel moments constantly.
So I'm catching these squirrel moments and I'm deciphering it going, okay, I know what that means. So that goes in this category and this goes. So I'm organizing what they're saying during the conversation and we actually do it in a, like a spreadsheet that shows them, okay, here's all the steps and then here's all the things we're going to have with it.
An email template, a script, an automated thing in the system. It's a visual map for those creative brains to see it visually. From there, then we can create the documentation.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Are you surprised by that anymore? Or do you expect that, expect that, that disorganized, maybe not the right word, but how their brain and how your operations brain work, it's a different. Like I would assume if somebody who came in who was like an operations guru from like IBM and they had to come sit down with a, with a residential interior design team and work on their processes, they would probably like be flummoxed because they're like, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but you're kind of in that, in between where you know what the designer is talking about.
But you're like, we need to get you from here to here.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes, exactly. I am not surprised by it. And I wasn't surprised by it when I started the business because at the family business there were four business owners. That is a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Two of them were my family, two of them were not.
And so I had to navigate and learn four different owner personalities that were wildly different, very owner esque, very entrepreneurial, very, you know, leadership based people. So it was navigating that.
And no, I'm definitely not surprised. That's how their brain works because that's what makes them successful. That's what allows them to be creative and work with their customers and get engagement and excitement. So I let them do that. You know, I've had team members in the past be surprised by it.
And it's like, why don't you control the conversation more I'm like. Because I will stifle them, I won't get the information that I need. I need them to just brainstorm and I grab what I need and I put it all together.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Makes sense to me. At the end of the day, we're in the business of business to make money. Doesn't matter what we're selling. Selling design services, we're teaching people how to hire and implement systems and processes better in the day.
We have to make money. What kind of numbers, financial numbers. Should designers be paying attention? Maybe they're not.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, I think, and I'm glad you started the question that way because regardless of, you know, your design business, you are selling, you are bringing in dollars. And so designers often don't think about that as sales.
And I keep saying sales on purpose to try to re gear. Because you are selling a service. Yes. You're also designing, that's the service you're providing. But you can't design until you sell the service. So you have to pay attention to your sales numbers. You have to pay attention to your monthly sales.
What are your average sales? What are your close rates? Because things like that will help. You know, how many leads or discovery calls do I need to do to get X amount of contracts? And those contracts are going to set me up for, you know, this period of time, six months or a year.
If you know that you can be proactive on it. And it doesn't feel like then this roller coaster of we have so many business, so much sales, so we're executing it and then all of a sudden we take a dip when we're starting to facilitate delivery.
But we don't have any more leads, we don't have any more sales because we weren't proactive and staying on top of it. So that's the first thing is sales numbers, average sale, close rate, total sales. Then you got to look at your cash flow, money in and out.
So same relation to sales numbers. But what are the billing coming in, what are the So your billing rates weekly or monthly coming in versus what you're collecting on the back end and back end might be, you know, when you're ready to make furnishing purchases, getting the deposit at that point, 100%.
So that's money in the door. Some people which I don't recommend are splitting that and it's 50% and 50% on delivery. Well if it's on 50% of delivery, then you need to be able to track that delivery, making sure those dollars are Coming back in the door. So you're not letting this project go on forever and never collect.
So it's the cash flow in relation to your sales numbers that just to start those would be good things to look at.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Another metric that I find doesn't really get analyzed and should and we kind of. When you brought up your example of the successful client you had, how you saved them, a ton of time in how they did their things. Time across the entirety of their business.
Like I'm sure you find lots of areas where time is wasted.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes, yes. And what's interesting. So yes. Question earlier about you know, some of the biggest challenges I see designers have. And with time it's waiting time. So you know, if we look at the whole scope of the project from the moment they had the discovery call to delivery of whatever that service is in between that analyzing waiting time will help us shrink down the timeline.
And the worst waiting time tends to happen. That's the designers fault is the time to prep the estimate. And usually I hear it's somewhere around 30 to 45 days. That is crazy town.
In my head it should be a couple days to a week. And I get you are talking to vendors and putting it together but if you had systems and templates you wouldn't have to get a one off quote every single time. You are just putting numbers, budgeting numbers together for a client.
It needs to be quick. Clients don't understand all of that that takes to not be able to get a quote Within 30 days you're going to lose them. So that waiting time in between steps should definitely be analyzed to figure out is there anything I can do to speed this up or is it something like furnishings?
We're just waiting on it to be delivered to us. We can't do a whole lot about that time but we can with the receiving part of it. I've seen businesses where they're delivery paperwork wasn't set up properly ahead of time. So when it was received, now they're creating the paperwork which delays being able to get it scheduled and coordinate all the contractors involved.
So do all of that ahead of time so that when it comes in you're ready to go and you move on to the next step. So it's that waiting time that kills most businesses.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Both of those things, the numbers and the money and the time and all that kind of stuff. Is there technology that you feel comfortable kind of saying you know, your business needs this as opposed to you know, we can get by. Are there Things you say, no, you've got to do this.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, I think every business needs a CRM, a customer relation management tool. And that CRM should have things like the customer contact information, ideally what projects or opportunities are tied to those, customers.
And then some CRMs have scheduling tools, some of them have purchase order or paperwork tools where you can generate certain documents within the system. So when we talk technology with folks, that CRM and a financial system at a very bare minimum.
But I also like to recommend things like shared drives. So we're big Google Drive fans. Dropbox, you know, is out there. You're just constantly sharing documents back and forth internally or with contractors or maybe customers want to send you pictures.
So giving them a link to upload that. So different ways to get all of your communication, all of your documentation, all in one area will help you manage all of the moving parts. Now the software tool itself will be highly customized to the business.
So we actually have this assessment when we're looking at what software should we be implementing if they're open to adding a new software. And it's a checklist, you know this software has scheduling, this one doesn't. So if you want scheduling in your software, these are the softwares we could look at.
So it's things like on a checklist standpoint you have things like Asana ClickUp, where it's a list of tasks you can assign to people. You can see different views of those tasks and then you get into the more robust CRM systems.
A couple of them out there for interior designers. I've seen and worked with is Butcher some of the pronunciations, hopefully not Endema. Is one I've worked with, Studio, Designer, which has a financial component which is nice too.
And some more of those, the other one, my DOMA Studio, those will be the more comprehensive CRM management type systems that are interior design focused. Yeah.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And I'm sure with the advent of AI systems, all of those CRMs are probably finding ways to stick AI into it to automate things that required physical clicks from a human being.
So that'll probably all in the next five years everything will be different in that landscape anyway way.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Well and I'm already seeing that even as simple as, you know, Google Suite for example. You know we create a lot of spreadsheets, creating complicated formulas and stuff. Now they have an AI portion where if you don't know how to create the formula, just like ChatGPT, you just, you talk it to like how you want it done and they create the formula for you and then you just plug it right in.
So, yes, AI is going to totally revolutionize all of, of all of what we do in every way.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so let's say our fictional interior designer has, hired you, or they tried it themselves and were somehow highly successful at, implementing systems and processes, in terms of being able to be more profitable, bring in more clients, grow possibly in terms of the size of their, their human capital.
What have you seen? Like, I want to hear some like, fantastic. This company started out as nothing and now they're like a billion dollar company.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah. Well, one of the, companies that I'm super impressed with is they're running a $4.5 million interior design business off of two people, the principal designer and their junior designer.
Unbelievably sharp ladies, but also super systematic. You cannot do that without softwares and procedures. So those gals are just blowing it out of the water. But the ones I'm also super proud about is that gradual growth year over year.
So, most of our consulting clients, work with us over a two, three year period. They can stop before that. But they just find so much success in the top line revenue and their bottom line profitability, because that's what we're looking at every quarter, every six months is all right.
Are these processes doing anything to our profit and loss? It should. You know, we want to make sure we're eliminating errors or we're not overspending and certain software categories and stuff like that. So we're not just writing the procedure, but we're tying it to your profit and loss statements and making sure that you are profitable.
So some of the things I've seen is 20% growth year over year. My favorite numbers is the net profit. So I've taken businesses that were half a million dollars in debt and in a year we got them to 2% positive profit.
And then in a year from that, we brought them up to 12% net. Prof. I've taken businesses from 6% to 26% net profit in a two year period. So I really am looking at that bottom line and how we can save money through these processes.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Is that how you ask your clients how to judge you based on those kind of metrics? I was listening to a podcast today, from Gary Vaynerchuk, and he was saying that's how he does it with his marketing firm is he doesn't talk, he doesn't promise his clients that he's going to get them, you know, a number of organic views on social media marketing or anything like that.
He says, I want your company to make more money. That's how you can judge me. Right? Oh, because I mean if you were to, if I was to meet you and you were telling me, you know, I could turn my, my, you know, profits from 2% to 26%, I'd be pretty happy. And if you could do that for me within a two year span, like you're more than worth whatever I got to pay you.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Right, exactly. And that's, that's something that I'm looking at too. I mean I, I want this investment to be able to make you money in any way, shape or possible, whether that's on your sales upfront strategies or on your back end operational strategies.
But it's to me that speaks volumes is the numbers themselves, the other things, that we get feedback on. They think we're great with putting out fires. So very creative on problem solving.
But if there's a fire going on, like someone quit or I've had one of the first businesses, that I helped, he called me in the middle of his office. His entire team quit. There was no people. It was like, oh my God.
I'm like, I'm out of business. I don't have anyone right now. And that's what our starting point was. So it doesn't matter what it is if it's half a million dollars in debt or if, you know, you have infighting with family. I've had so many what people consider therapy sessions with family members and sitting down really trying to figure it out.
So it's that emotional side that is going to be tied to the numbers but that like we'll jump and we'll put out the fire. And we're really good at doing that quickly.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. I assume you're that calm center in the middle of us of a storm of.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah. Or it's like, oh, you're so positive. You always find that silver lining.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Well, yeah, you're like one seen it before and it's not going to help if you freak out.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes, exactly, exactly. That's just going to make all things worse.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So as a, as a design firm grows, I'm sure not everything is perfect. There's going to be bumps in the road. Normal. Just the fact that you're bigger. Right. Are there any kind of challenges that are typical that you see if a design firm starts to grow that they should expect?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah. So one thing that is Surprising to folks is that your processes have to change at different points of business. So what brought you to a million is not going to bring you from a million to 5 million.
And what brings you to 5 won't get you to 10. So at certain points of your business you actually, you have to restructure and you have to restructure who's doing what. You have to restructure some of the softwares and some of the sequence of events the process is.
So that can kind of be a shock to folks sometimes. It's like, well, this has been working for years. Yes, it just won't work for the future. So being okay with that and congratulating yourself for getting to that point will help get through that hard time.
But that is just a reality of a business growing. Okay.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Definitely when a solo designer brings in somebody new and if that's a junior designer, but even larger firms, how do you maintain that kind of vision of your interior design firm and the quality that you expect?
And kind of this is what we're known for. How do we keep that consistent or improve upon it as we bring in new people? Because you know, if I'm the, the principal designer and people have been working with me and that's the reputation of the company, I can't clone myself.
So. Any advice on how to do that?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, I'm pretty systematic on culture items when I bring on a new person. So every new person that comes onto my team, takes an assessment that tells us their communication style and how they lead them themselves and things like that.
We do that in the recruiting process. But when they come on, every time a new person comes on, we have a team meeting and we talk about everyone's assessments on the team so that they know and, and the more they do it, the teammates, I end up having them explain it themselves so they learn how they operate compared to others and it just starts this communication channel off from the get go.
I also go through with the whole team on that meeting what our core values are. Because that's something that every person is measured on when they come to review time with me. So I want everyone to know these are the three core values we're standing our business on. And this is how you play a part in that and this is how you're going to be measured on that.
So that's like the first week when we bring someone on, then we do things like goal setting once a year with the team. So in the goal setting we have a structure to it so the team knows this is what they have to bring to the table every time.
And if it's a new person, then we give them the instructions ahead of time. But we walk them through it that first time and say, hey, this is what to expect, you know, in the future. But it's something that they come to expect every year. We got that two day workshop we're going to every, December, figure out what the next year is going to look like and how they all play a part of it.
And then after that, we also do an audit on our procedures and we separate them from all. Like each employee gets a chunk to look at and they maintain and update our current procedures because things could have changed. And you know, a procedure is only as good as what's updated.
So we have to stay ahead of that so it doesn't get dusty.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: If we go back to those success stories of design, firms you've helped transformed, if we were to look kind of like a 30,000 view above what aspects of operational changes bring in the most amount of financial result, is there anything like, I'm sure, like there's how you put things in, they've got to go in a system.
But, but are there parts of that that are just like this is going to, this is where we're going to see money?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yes. So ordering, ordering accurately on time, will affect a lot of your costs. So for example, with, some interior designers, they may not order something until closer to the delivery point.
Right. Maybe they're doing a construction project. So we're going to hold off on ordering until later. Well, I'm a believer you want to order especially if you have somewhere to receive it, you want to order it as soon as you can so that the price doesn't increase, so that it doesn't go discontinued, so that you don't forget what you talked about with the client.
And so it's all fresh, ready to go. Get that order in. The more you delay it, the more errors increase. And when I look at that profit and loss and I'm looking at your cost of products, your cost of goods sold, a lot of times if that number is too high, it's because of the product errors that are occurring.
So I want to look at that first is the ordering process. I also want to look at the punch list process. So once it comes to the end of delivery, if you're doing an install of some kind and you're creating your punch list of these are the things we still need to do, they have to have Deadlines, they have to be concrete so that you don't expect, extend your billing time, you don't extend, you know, again your product errors and things like that.
So kind of like that end punchless repair warranty, however you want to call that. And then that ordering process is the two biggest impacts you're going to have on money.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And that that last piece also, it's, it's a, has a pretty profound effect on the psychology of the, the job. Right. Of how happy the, the client is at the end. I mean if there's a mistake the first 10% into a job, we'll forget about that.
But the end of a project is vitally important for that.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah. And we want to get that buttoned up, like get that done. So the customer is excited to use their home and.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: And on a good note.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, so you've convinced me. Me and my firm, we need you to come in and fix us because we are broken. But we don't have a ton of available cash right now. Is.
Can you give me an idea? I would love to have the full experience. Right. I mean a range of what we can do.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah. So we on the consulting side work in six month increments and we bill monthly. So you're not making the big investment up, up front or even like in a 75% deposit and those sorts of things, you're spreading that out and that's where we try to start with the biggest bang for your buck.
You know, if we're coming in, we want to be able to fix your ordering process so that you continue to work with us, so we can control that in a way of knowing your finances, knowing what's going to make that biggest impact. So it just becomes relief over time.
But then if, let's say at the end of six months, you're not, you're not seeing what you expected, or maybe you just get so busy you can't even see straight, then you just can pause after every six months. But that's on the consulting side. Then we have more, I would consider like a la carte resources.
So if you just want to hire someone, we have a recruiting package. If you just want to train someone on certain topics, we have training either on site or online. We also have downloadable tools, on our website.
So with recruiting, for example, if you don't want us, you know, from an investment standpoint to do the full recruiting package, we can teach you how to do it. And you get a downloaded tool, you get 90 minutes with me. And I coach you on how to do it, you run with it and you implement it.
So really we can do it both ways. We can teach you how to do it, which is what a lot of the large organizations will do. Like you have the infrastructure, you have the people, you just need the guidance. But we also have then for the smaller firms, the extra help and the pairs of hands that you don't have.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I would assume also that is an education unto itself. Right. To have you there to answer all the little nitpicky questions. And but like anything else, you know, when, when you are trying to do something that you've never done before, there's the things you, I know, I don't know how to do that.
But then there's those unknowns that you can't even fathom. Right. It's like, oh, I hadn't even thought of that.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Right, exactly. Yeah. And that's why the discovery is so helpful. Because it's not just. I used the first year when I opened the business, I was such an order taker and they came to me and they were like, I have a sales problem. Like, okay, I can help with sales.
And I'd go in and then I'd be training them on sales and because I'd be involved, I'd go, well, that's not your problem. Your pricing is the problem. So now because that happened a couple times, I was like, no, no, I, I believe you're self diagnosing.
I'm going to come in and tell you what the problem is after all of the analysis. Because what you think is the problem may just be a symptom of your problem and you're not seeing what that real root is.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I can see that. That's exactly what I mean. Those, those unknown unknowns. Before I dive into how designers can connect with you, are there any of the things that I've forgotten to ask that maybe designers should know about you and your business?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, I think, just from the recruiting and the training perspective, you know, if it is kind of those a la carte sort of services, our recruiting side is like your extended HR department. So literally everything in the process, we do screening, we do the ad writing, we write the offer letter, we do a background and reference check.
So everything involving recruiting we will manage. So really you only have to do a couple of interviews, pick the person, and that's your role in it. So. And then we'll coach you along the way on the right interview questions to ask and compliance and all Those good things.
So, that is a super, big part of our world is finding top talent and then the training of that top talent. Because my teaching background. I'm sorry, just love teaching. So, we have courses in sales and customer service.
Customer service can be on like procurement, project management, but also how do we respond to these customer concerns or you know, get them off the ledge sometimes. So give them the tools for that. And then we have business development trainings too. You know, if you need to build a better network, you know, it's not marketing and advertising training, it's how do you build your network, how do you build referral programs, how do you build repeat, customers and things like that.
So we've got a lot of online and on site live trainings. It's not pre recorded. It would be with me. So, it just gives you the employee training that sometimes you don't have the time for.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: This all sounds amazing to me. So how can I reach out? What's the best way to reach out?
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Yeah, so all of this information is on our website. Just was beautifully redesigned. So I'm very excited for you to see it. That is go BehindTheDesign.com. but you can also follow us. We do a lot of, Instagram lives. So our whole team will be on, on different topics of, people and process and trainings and, and stuff.
So you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Looking up. Go behind the design or behind the design. You'll find us either way.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, that's how I found you on Instagram. Yeah. Well, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you doing this. I learned a lot.
Jessica Harling - Behind The Design: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me.
Why Interior Designers Benefit From Systematic Operations
Interior design education focuses exclusively on creative development while ignoring business fundamentals. Jessica reveals that successful interior designers implement systematic operations that offer distinct advantages:
Documented processes create consistency across all client projects and team interactions
Visual mapping helps creative minds understand and follow business workflows more effectively
Systems reduce operational stress while preserving creative energy for actual design work
Strategic documentation enables effective team training without constant repetition
Clear processes improve client experience by eliminating confusion and delays
This approach enables interior designers to focus on their creative strengths while building businesses that support both professional success and personal wellbeing.
The Systematic Operations Blueprint
According to Jessica, successful business operations for interior designers depend on structured implementation:
Mapping your complete "life of the client" experience from initial inquiry through project completion
Identifying repetitive tasks and decision points that drain creative energy unnecessarily
Documenting processes visually in ways that make sense for creative minds
Training team members using systematic approaches rather than hoping they'll figure things out
Creating operational consistency that enhances rather than constrains creative work
The difference between interior designers who struggle with operations and those who thrive isn't organizational talent - it's having strategic systems that work with, not against, creative thinking patterns.
Transform Your Interior Design Business Through Strategic Operations
Interior designers who implement Jessica's systematic operations approach report meaningful business transformations:
Reduced operational stress through documented processes that eliminate mental juggling
Enhanced team effectiveness when everyone follows clear, systematic procedures
Improved creative focus by freeing mental energy from operational management
Stronger business growth through consistent, scalable operational systems
Better work-life balance when business operations run without constant personal management
The goal for many interior designers extends beyond just staying organized to creating businesses that enhance both creative satisfaction and financial success. Strategic operations implementation achieves this balance by transforming chaotic management into systematic processes that support design excellence.
Connect with Jessica Harling
If you're ready to get your business processes out of your head and into systems that work automatically, connect with Jessica at:
Website: www.gobehindthedesign.com
Instagram: @gobehindthedesign
Join the Interior DesignHer Community
If this episode of Interior DesignHer sparked new possibilities for your business operations, you'll find additional resources in our community.
Working with solo and small-team interior designers across North America, we created Interior DesignHer to help interior designers improve the business side of their practice. We especially support designers seeking sustainable, systematic approaches to business management.
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