091: Building a Business with Intention
Michele 00:00
Hello, my name is Michele and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. On the podcast today is Glenna Stone. Glenna is the owner of Glenna Stone Interior Design located in the Philadelphia area, her backgrounds are in engineering and we're going to discover how her knowledge of supply chain and prior work in the consumer products industry have informed her business model for her design company. Glenna and I are having this conversation during the time of COVID-19. And we address some of the nuances that this business disruption has brought into our ways of doing business. We also talk about what we think business will look like on the other side of shelter in place. Glenna is such a smart businesswoman. She loves the number side and that thrills my heart. She is just gracious and sharing. And she absolutely was a highlight for me on the day that we talked. I'm sure you're going to be inspired by all she has to share. Enjoy the podcast.
Michele 00:59
Everyday empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health, and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design industry, educator and speaker. I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.
Michele 01:29
Hey, Glenna, welcome to the podcast.
Glenna 01:32
Hey, Michele, I'm so happy to be here.
Michele 01:33
I'm so glad too. I just want to mention for everybody that we are recording this in the time of COVID-19. So that as our discussion takes place, and based on when people jump in to listen, they will understand kind of the context and the texture of what we're saying. It changes the way we do business and it changes the way we might think about certain things, but I appreciate you taking the time during a crazy time in our world and in our life to jump on and to talk to me today.
Glenna 02:03
Absolutely.
Michele 02:04
So Glenna tell us a little bit about your business. Tell us where you started? How you started? How you ended up where you are?
Glenna 02:13
Yeah, well, first, I just want to thank you so much for having me on today. I'm really excited to be here and talk shop with you and all things interior design. I think in this time of crisis and struggle, a lot of people tend to focus on gratitude and reflection. And as I've been preparing for this podcast, it's been so cathartic for me to do that as I got ready to speak to you today.
Michele 02:34
It's funny that you say that a lot of other people that I've spoken to... I send like a pre list of here's some ideas of things for us to talk about. And many of them say that taking that time to go back and reflect and to watch has been exciting for them. I was reading an article yesterday about a plant and it's like, no matter how long you stare at the plant, you're not going to see it grow. Or like your kids. One day you realize, "Oh my gosh, your pants are too short. What happened?" You're looking at them every single day. My husband and I were just cleaning outside of our house and doing some gardening. And I was like, "We just pulled these weeds two weeks ago. How did they get there?" And I think our business growth is the same way. Some of it is that very slow, very steady, incremental growth, that we don't realize how far we've come and how far we've grown. Until we kind of stop and look back at that retrospective. It gives us a different perspective when we look back, so I'm glad you did it and thankful that you did it. And I'm thankful that you have gratitude after doing that, right.
Glenna 03:34
Yeah, absolutely.
Michele 03:35
So share some of that journey with us. We're excited to hear about it.
Glenna 03:38
Yeah well, so I started this company 10 years ago, and it's hard to believe we're going to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary this year. I can't believe it. We're located in the Philadelphia city and we're in an area called Chestnut Hill, which is technically in the city limits, but it's actually about 20 minutes outside of our center city. And it's like this picturesque, cute little town. It's got cobblestone streets and little shops and restaurants. And it's really just been a wonderful community to have our business roots in. Our studios right on the main street called Germantown Avenue. And we have a small showroom aspect to our studio, which is really fantastic for our clients. And the rest is a fully functioning design studio. And we work on both residential and commercial projects.
Michele 04:21
And so when your company started 10 years ago, that wasn't right out of college. What did you do prior to that?
Glenna 04:27
Yeah, so prior to that, actually, I graduated with a degree in engineering. And from there I ended up working as a management consultant for Price Waterhouse Coopers for a number of years in the consumer products industry, specifically working with fortune 500, consumer products, companies. Then I eventually got hired full-time to work for Gillette, which then became Procter and Gamble. I was managing their Oral B promotions for North America. It was very supply chain heavy and focused. So I did that for a number of years. And then while we were living in Boston at the time. My mother's an artist and I just grew up in a really creative household and I was really missing the creativity in my job. And so I just started taking classes at night just thinking I would kind of fulfill this creative outlet and other ways by just exploring photography classes and cooking classes. And I ended up taking an interior design class at Rhode Island School of Design which is about an hour south of Boston. I just fell in love with everything about it. Like I just couldn't get enough of it. I signed up for more classes and more classes and I mean it was an hour drive. I would take three hours studios so it was after my full day of work I would tack on another five hours. I just couldn't get enough of it. My husband kind of joke. I've taken so many classes he was like, "What? Are you like getting another degree like what are you doing?" I was like, "I think I need to" so I ended up applying to masters programs. I grew up in Delaware. So we had wanted to kind of come back to the Philadelphia area. So I ended up getting my master's at Drexel in Interior Architecture and Design.
Michele 06:04
Oh my gosh, there's some parallels for me. So I worked for Dun and Bradstreet Software and built software. Which is creative in its own way. We were building project accounting software, but I had this need to be creative and to express it. I've always done creative things growing up, and I felt this bigger need to express myself. My husband and one of my best friend Barbie, they always just laugh at me because I took a cake decorating class. And so every Thursday night, I came home with some type of a cake and they all showed up like at 9:00 or 9:30 at my house. I asked the neighbors to eat cake that I had just decorated. Every week there was another one. And then I took some classes at Oglethorpe University on interior design. I was pulling things together and was doing some of the same things and II was not willing at that time to step away from my job. I didn't really see that I could. And then my business ended up changing. And I came home and then started a career in interiors. But it was the same for me, I kept feeling this need to do something else. So I worked my entire day. And then I would go do classes at night and then come home with either a mood board or a cake based on the class that I was in at the time. So I love that parallel. So you made this shift and made the change. And when you started it, because you've got a business degree or engineering degree, but you had worked in business and you've had some of that business understanding behind you. When you started your interior design business, I'm curious, did you start with a full blown business plan?
Glenna 07:41
Yes and no. I mean, I think my intention from the beginning was to always... Once I decided to start my own business, it was always to have a team, to have employees,. Like so many designers I just started, with myself and my house. And starting a business is really hard. And at the time, we were relatively new to the Philadelphia area after having lived in Boston for 10 years. So, I think it's even harder to start a business without a network. So I really worked hard to create that for me here. And that really helped me kind of start start the business.
Michele 08:15
That's a really great point. It's having a network because we all tend to start primarily with the people that we know, with the connections and the community that we're in. And so when you're new and a community... I'll tell you another thing, I've seen. Some of these very young and I'm talking about young and age designers who are trying to start a business by themselves, they sometimes have difficulty because their peer group can't afford them. Your group is not in a stage of life to be able to afford to have an interior designer. And so they're having to sell to an older aged peer group, that maybe they're not in or have connections and especially if they're new and community. And so all of that can make it very difficult to not only start the business. to be profitable in the business or to even just get the lead under it. I also Glenda that you mentioned starting your business is difficult. It's not. I'm not saying there aren't some places where it can be done with ease. But there are a lot of moving to really build a business. There are so many moving pieces and parts and considerations and strategies, it's more than being great at design. It's more than being great at sewing or great at whatever that skill set, that core competency skill set. It's in some ways, forcing us to be great at everything else so that we can do the thing that we're really good at. I mean, that's what business is. They are getting all of this so that I can do the piece that I'm good at.
Glenna 09:38
Yeah, nobody exposes you how to be a business owner. You know.
Michele 09:41
They don't. I've said multiple times I graduate from college, we'll just say a really long time ago. I started my interiors company in 2000. So I'm at 20 years right now and I already had 10 years prior to that in software. So I'm a good 30 years out from college. I went when I was three if anybody is calculating, child prodigy. But in fact that they didn't offer courses like entrepreneurship, they didn't offer courses on how to start and run your own business. The side hustle, it was a rare group. When we heard of people starting a business out of their den or out of their garage, back then 30 years ago, they were an anomaly. You were almost shocked. You were like, "Wow." And in these days, you almost expect everybody to have a side hustle or to have a second job, or to do something entrepreneurial. It's almost like, in some ways that maybe it's because I've cultivated a very strange mix of people. I'm almost more shocked at people that aren't doing something like that than those that are. And that is the opposite of what it was 30 years ago. And so there's a lot of trial and error when we're starting these companies, don't you think?
Glenna 10:52
Oh my gosh, absolutely. I mean, I came from this background where I had a corporate background and I brought a lot of that kind of experience into kind of how I built the firm from the ground up. But at the same time, interior design is so nuanced. It's like, you don't know what you know until you get into it. And it's like a business that most people don't really fully understand how detailed it is and how many pieces there are to it. And so for sure we're always learning. I'm still learning now. It's just constant, which actually its really what I love about it. It's always changing. It's always new. It's always fresh.
Michele 11:30
I would agree. Same for me. So let me ask you this. When you started the business. You had your career in more of a corporate environment. You're starting this business, you're new in your community. Tell me if you can remember, in what ways did you consider profitability? So in other words, I want to create this to be profitable. You said that you always knew going into it that you wanted this to be more than you. You knew you wanted this to be more of a firm, to have employees. To be a bigger thing than what it was starting out. So in what ways did you consider profitability from the beginning? And what ways did you not consider it? Because you didn't know.What did you not know?
Glenna 12:10
Yeah, I didn't know a lot. So I brought this kind of consulting background, which is project based work. And then I was in the corporate world, which tied heavily back to profitability. So I did come into the business with skills I could leverage especially in the corporate world being in supply chain, I really had a good understanding of how product moves throughout a country. And that was a huge asset to just in like, kind of the supply chain of interior design and how product moves and how we get things to receivers and to the home. And so I have all of that coming into it. But honestly, really understanding the numbers of an interior design business was really where I had a lot of growth. Trying to develop the systems to track and monitor those numbers. I'm still doing that. I'm still always trying to dig deeper and understand what our numbers mean and how the numbers came to be. And I don't really see that ever going away because we're always as I just said, The industry is always growing and shifting and then our businesses are growing and shifting. So that was a big learning curve for me like. how to read a balance sheet? How to read a p&l statement? Why are these numbers here? How did they get there? How do you dig deeper and really analyze what they mean?
Michele 13:28
Right? Why do I even care about the numbers?
Glenna 13:31
By doing my design work, right?
Michele 13:34
Yeah, it's funny, I spend time helping people know why they should even care about the numbers. It is easy, especially in an up economy, to get those reports to look at them and go, "Yeah, I got them check, check, check and move on." Versus giving them the second and third glance and really digging in and going what are they telling me? What story are my numbers telling me? What's going on here? And I love how you call that the growth of it because we are are all still growing. And I am constantly teaching different ways to look at and attack your numbers because we all... I've shared before on the podcast, everybody in my home, except for me is dyslexic. So I can give the same set of numbers, the same worksheets, the same everything, and we're coming out in different ways. And so you know, I've taken my courses again. I've taken courses on how to teach things visually, and auditorly, and kinesthetic and tactile and the different ways that we all kind of approach things. And so there's growth in that, right, because you see it differently when you come at it from a different play.
Glenna 14:37
Absolutely a numbers that, maybe were important to me, and I was looking at six, seven years ago are different than what I'm looking at now. Right?
Michele 14:45
Right. We have a different view. Okay, so I've got a big question for you. This wasn't on our list, because at the time that I reached out to you, we weren't sheltering in place, and all of the different business challenges right now. Knowing that you do have that background in supply chain, I can imagine that you are seeing the disruption that we're having right now. And you might be a little more forward thinking than some of us because you do understand. Give me an idea of what you see and what you think is happening currently with our supply chain. And where I'm going to call the world starts spinning again, and we turn the lights back on and kind of can step back into our new reality. What do you think will be happening, I won't hold you to any of it. None of that. This is just we're just thinking strategically based on information that we have. And that we know. I just got through doing this week multiple webinars on how we should be looking at our numbers. You and I talked even before we came on. We're looking at our numbers, we might have started off monthly or bi weekly. Now we're down to weekly or daily and we're really again looking at those numbers and digging in. But I would love to hear your thoughts on our supply chain disruptions. Where the supply chains holding firm? What it might look like when we flip everything back on?
Glenna 16:02
Yeah. Well, I mean, gosh, that's a difficult question. I wish I had that crystal ball. But we are talking really closely with our vendors. Basically, that's the start of a lot of our supply chain. Talking to them about how they're getting product. Where are they seeing from their product that they're sourcing from? Right? That's really important. And understanding what's happening with the transportation, the logistics, the trucking aspect of it. In a lot of states that has been shut down. And you can only transport essential goods and just trying to understand is the transportation industry going to be able to kind of ramp back up to where we were. Are they still going to be transporting medical supplies around? And is that going to impact our ability not just to produce products, but to be able to transport products? And I don't know that answer. Every vendor we work with is in a different and that's one of the challenges of the times that we're in. Everybody has a different situation that they're working through where some people are allowed to work, and some people aren't allowed to work. And that really does create a lot of disruptions in the supply chain, maybe you can produce product, but you can't move product. So we're really working closely with our vendors to understand their particular situations, especially some of the key ones that we have really strong relationships with. So we'll see. I don't think anybody can really answer that question very precisely right now.
Michele 17:28
But I think you answered it perfectly. And so what I want to do is, let's pick it apart for a minute. I think everything that you shared, is what I would love for our listeners to be able to kind of think about. Number one is identify your vendors know who your vendors are, and you use the term key vendors know who your key vendors are. Those are the vendors that you either do the highest amount of work with, or the most maybe unique or custom work with who are the ones that really matter for you to move product and to move your business forward and be in communication with them. I was thinking the other day, I don't have a logistics degree, but I have an Information Systems degree. And I said to my husband, I said, "You know, again, in some states, some of our businesses are considered essential, some are not considered essential. Some businesses can travel, some can't. It's not even just can they produce it? And can they deliver it? It's rare is it in the stage? I mean, they could be in a warehouse stuck between states because they had to stop in the middle.
Glenna 18:25
Right?
Michele 18:26
You know we don't know what that looks like. It can be on a container sitting at a port. We don't know where these things are, in the entire chain of getting from point A to where we are maybe point z. There's like, you know, B, and y all the way in the middle of that. That's the challenge. But if our vendors are doing their jobs, well, they know where these things are and they can at least they might not be able to say when it can be released and when you can have it but they should be able to identify has it gone into production has it not? Is it halfway in production is stopped Is it on a truck? Is it in a container, they should be able to give us an idea when things come back on and when they have access to all of their records where everything is.
Michele 19:10
Exactly, one of the things that I think is kind of a bummer is that market didn't get to happen. Right. And I asked you about high point market and you know, all the market systems, they're super important because what they do is they allow us to meet these suppliers and to understand their supply chains. And to see how what they're doing, if it's going to fit into the way that we do business and to choose new vendors. And we've kind of lost a little bit of that business opportunity in the same timing that we had before. But one of the opportunities I think that can come out of this is is finding new vendors and realizing which vendors business models align with the way you do business. So I think it's going to be difficult and it's going to be a challenge but there's some exciting opportunities to maybe find new vendors who found ways around to work creative, and that came out of the stronger. And we're probably just like we're going to lose multiple businesses out of all of this, we're going to lose some of our suppliers, potentially, we are ready to be like in forethought of who they are and who are some. I will, I'm going to say the word competitors, because who has a like product that we can switch to, if we can't continue on with maybe one that we've sourced or that was in our delivery schedule?
Glenna 20:29
We've already done that analysis in our company, like looking at products that we have specified for projects. And honestly, there's been a couple of selections that I'm like, we should reselect. Know that I hope that they make it out of this, but kind of going into this, they were in a little bit of state of flux or turmoil. And I don't want us to have to be in a situation where we can't deliver a product that we told a client we could deliver to them. And so we did a careful analysis of that. For all of our projects,
Michele 21:01
One of the things that I've been sharing in my private Facebook group, which is an open Facebook group is called Build a Profitable Business for Designers and Workrooms. But I've been sharing with them about how to recession proof your business. And this was like a month and a half ago.
Michele 21:16
I know it actually, believe it or not, I had written up an entire educational thing about recessions back in January, and had just almost like, oh, gosh, this is so good. I'll just put that to the side. And I'll come back for it. And then I started watching what was happening. I rip that notebook out. I'm like, "Alright, here we go. Let's talk about it." But one of the things I said was be very careful with who you choose to do business with. I teach a methodology called AIM with Intent. And the a is align with your team and I look at your team, right, just as you and your client. It is any two people. It is you and your vendor. It is you and your subcontractor. It is you and your employees. And this is a time that when we are aligning our team, we need to make sure that the vendors and the people that we're working with are solid.
Glenna 21:16
It's timely.
Glenna 22:00
Yeah.
Michele 22:01
If they were influx or leaning towards lack of solvency going into this, the idea of them coming out stronger is not really I would say more likely to happen. And so we've got to be careful that we don't have our money tied up with a client or with a vendor rather, that can't produce and then can't return on money.
Glenna 22:21
100%
Michele 22:22
We seriously need to have been looking at that. And if we haven't, I want to recommend that that those that are listening, do that exact work that you shared with us ,that you all are doing.Go ahead and get on top of that, not saying that we all go run and pull everything.
Glenna 22:39
No, no.
Michele 22:39
Not at all. This is not a knee jerk reaction. This is a very thoughtful process that you're going through. Only after some type of communication with those vendors and with things that you have. Especially if you've got them in process and have made down payments. That's going to be a different conversation.
Glenna 22:55
Exactly.
Michele 22:56
But we do need to look at the supply chain and who are our suppliers that we're working with, and the ones that we had going in some may not make it when we come out. And we just have to be aware of that.
Glenna 23:07
Yeah, I can't agree more. I mean, I think it's really worth it for people to go through that analysis with the projects that they haven't placed orders for. But I also agree with you to not have a knee jerk reaction, like I'm not trying to take away business from anybody. And honestly, when we went through it, it was very, very few vendors that we ended up making some substitutions for, or kind of diversifying, maybe a little bit more in term. If we were going to do one big order here. Maybe we just diversify a little bit. So we don't have all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak, but it was very, very few. You know, I think that it was really just kind of some key ones that we were already kind of watching even before this happened. Right.
Michele 23:48
Right. I agree. I that's why I keep saying not neater for that reason, because I also when I talk to people about what's going through and scrubbing our expenses, which I'm certain that you've done right.Done as Well, Oh, yes. Constantly in my Profit First model that I teach, we are every six months if not every quarter scrubbing expenses. We get busy and we don't look at where we're spending our money unless we make it a point to look at it, right. And so we've been scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. And so I just keep saying, we don't want to run in and just kind of willy nilly start cutting everything. Because other people, their livelihoods are depending on us fulfilling our end of the bargain to spend that money, just like I wouldn't want my clients to go rush out, and I'll go out. Just get ready to go cancel coaching with Michelle or everybody could cancel all your orders. But Glenna, we wouldn't want that, that we can't even do that. Exactly. Be thoughtful, and it's got to be carefully planned. Vince nagaraj. And I just had a conversation and we were even talking about going back to some of our vendors and having conversations about terms or about when things are due and you know, do I need to pay right now can I pay later? Have you done any of that kind of work as well, kind of starting to have those conversations about cash flow with your vendor?
Glenna 25:06
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not so much with our vendors, to be honest with you, but just within our team. So our model for most of our things is that we actually just pay our vendors in full 100% upfront, and helps us on the back end with time spent on collecting money, again, from clients and bookkeeping and all of that. But now we actually are doing deposits. So where we can do a 50% deposit or a smaller deposit with our vendors, we're doing that just to preserve our cash flow right now. I'm just trying to stretch that out as long as we can. So that's definitely a change we've implemented.
Michele 25:41
Yeah, I really like that. And I mean, I love when times are great, and you get 100% pay 100% and then you can keep moving. It cuts down on having to go back and do the multiple billings or even a double matchup appeal or whatever it is. It reduces a lot of internal costs. But that is a really great point, Glenna, that you bring that up that that is an area that just because you've been doing it like that when times are great. One of the business changes that we can look at right now is how low can I go? I taught today on minimal viable product or minimal viable expense or a minimum viable service, like what is the minimum that you can, in this case, pay the vendor for it to still be a viable order to go through for you to keep the rest to use cash flow to manage on the back end. So we're shifting the way that you're handling your funds and your cash available, so that you can put it towards the most important things. And that's where this priority and strategy comes into play. I would be curious when you and your team saw this change coming. I don't know if you guys feel like like we did, but I said, "I kind of felt like we're going along on a car and all of a sudden somebody slammed on the brakes. And we all kind of went flying over to our catching ourselves." Vince Nygaard just described it as being on a bike and rolling and going really good and somebody stuck a piece of wood in the spokes. We all kind of got caught in this slump. When in that process did you and your team stop and start looking at I mean, I know you do some things normally, because you shared that you did. But when did you stop and really go through the strategy for your company and start making these adjustments?
Glenna 27:27
Yeah, well, so we were going on our third week in Pennsylvania and shelter in place. So I would say it was, I guess it was actually three weeks ago today that our schools closed. Maybe it's four weeks, gosh, I can't even remember.
Michele 27:40
Somebody call it blurry today, like everything's just a blur.
Glenna 27:44
But as soon as our schools closed, it was a Thursday before they're supposed to go on spring break. That weekend, I sat down and I just started looking at our numbers. The first thing I did was look at our cash flow. Try to really put some numbers down to get an understanding of what our expense are. What do we have committed right now? Essentially, I wanted to really understand what I was calling our runway, like our baseline runway. If we just say status quo, right now with the committed work we have, like when do when does our money run out? Just trying to understand that and then trying to systematically apply knowledge to those numbers and say like, "Okay, well, if we can cut our expenses down to this, how much, you know, how much more one way does that get us?" That way we can make these changes in our business. The first thing I did was call our clients and say, "We're here for you. We're gonna, we're still working on your projects." I took our entire materials library and split it up between our staff based on kind of what projects they were working on. And I said, "Our vendors are still sampling. Our vendors are still shipping memos and samples." So for the projects that are fully in the design phase, we can keep that going. Because I really just wanted to make sure that everybody else was on the same page that we are going to keep going. I was trying to understand based on the projects we had committed under contract, what kind of work we had and how far that could carry us based on where each project was. To go back to your question, I started that immediately.
Michele 29:11
Okay. Yeah, I think most companies did it. At first, I think there was almost a shock for many of us, right? I know, I sometimes talk about all of these things, because I have that strategic way of handling things. Just very matter of factly. But there's emotion tied into this and I don't want to add.
Glenna 29:32
So much emotion.
Michele 29:33
I even though I am a planner and prepared and I'll never forget, I told my son, oh, gosh, probably a month ago. I said to him, "We need to plan for eight to 12 weeks." And he's younger, and he's almost 25. He was like, What news are you listening to? He said," Mom, I think you're like blowing this out of proportion." Because at the time we were hearing a little different. And I said, "No buddy I'm telling you, I think 8 to 12 weeks, we made a plan that we're going to be in like July, August. I mean, I'm telling you." He was like, "You're crazy. Where are you? Where are you listening to the news? Where are you getting it? I said listen, "I'm not like watching Twitter and getting my news from Twitter. I'm watching multiple places, and I am reading and I am seeing what I think is getting ready to happen." And so I immediately went into my coaching group, The Inner Circle. I started saying, "Okay, everybody, I want you right now to go create a four week transition plan. I want an eight week transition plan, I call it A, B, and a C. I want a 12 week transition plan. And then here, we're going to go create a restart plan." So we started creating these plans. And one of my designers said to me this week, she say, "I was kind of irritated with you, Michele, when you told us we needed not with me, but with the idea of having to create that eight week plan or that 12 week plan." It was kind of like, you know, when you kind of stomp your foot. She said, "But I trust you, so I did it and she said and now we're moving into the 8 week plan."
Glenna 31:02
Yeah, that's what I did.
Glenna 31:02
Yeah.
Michele 31:02
She said, "And I would have never thought that we would have gotten here." She said, "And I don't think that the 12 week plan is unrealistic." And so I do think we had to go through the emotion at the beginning of almost shock. And almost this oh my gosh, like the brakes just got slammed, like what do I do now? It wasn't like we were in 2008, 2009 Glenna, where we can see the trickle. Everybody kind of knew it was coming. We just weren't sure when it's going to come. This one just came out of nowhere, or blindsided us at to the extent to which we would have to stop and shut and close and quarantine. It was the extent of it. It was the depth and the breadth. And so I'm actually super impressed that you were able to very quickly to go in and start looking at numbers. But as business owners, I think some of us go into that survival mode.
Michele 31:21
You're like, "Oh, snap." And then you're like, "Okay, what am I gonna do to protect? How do I protect?" Then you almost feel the emotion later, a lot of my business owners felt the emotion one or two weeks into it, they kind of hit the wall or had a breaking point. But it's a moment after the initial shock. They went into planning. It sounds kind of like that's what you did.
Glenna 32:23
Oh, a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I went into the planning right away. The emotion wasn't delayed. I mean, it was like, survival mode, cry, survival, cry. It was like, up and down because I was trying to look at our numbers. And I was trying to be very numbers focused and practical. But it's hard to do that because there's so much. As a small business owner, you just can't take the emotion out of it. I can't do it. I don't know who could. But the shock was... I can't believe I'm doing that. I can't believe I'm looking at the numbers in this way. Like I never in a million years thought that I was going to have to be doing this. I mean, no one was prepared for this.
Michele 33:06
Right? Right. I am very data driven. And I absolutely have emotion. And I gotta tell you there were times over the last few weeks. And I think because I do have that strategy and like you kind of having an idea of the supply chain, You can start to see out. We may not have crystal balls, but we can start to see pathways of what we think might happen just like any other analyst would when we are analyzing based on prior history and what we know and where we see things going. And there were times not even kidding that before I had to go into a zoom video for my team, my coaching team. The 30 or 40 people that are showing up for me to guide their businesses for survival. I was in my kitchen crying, getting myself together, wiping my face. Coming in here and trying to not be Pollyanna but to hold my emotions together to guide them. Because it felt weighty. I look at my numbers all the time. I use the Profit First Methodology. So I've got my vault account that has three months of expenses in case anything were to happen. I was prepared for all of that. But you're not always prepared for the other decisions, the people decisions that need to be made that tie into the numbers. I mean, if we were just looking at numbers as an amoral, asset that's just sitting out there that has no ties to humans. You can look at it, in most cases without that much emotion. But when we tie in the fact that the teams that we built are family, and that we care about them. We care about their existence and their survival, and them being able to put food on the table. It does become a more weighty decision making process. We still have to feel that emotion. But we do have to push some of it to the side and look at things logically. We have to make ourselves do it. I'm kind of glad that we can't totally remove it, then we'd be robotic.
Glenna 35:01
Yeah right, exactly.
Michele 35:02
I don't know that we'd be great business owners with people.
Glenna 35:05
No, and that's just not how I like to look at our business either. There's both sides of it, and they're equal. And I just kept telling myself that I have to do this so that there's a business on the other side of this.
Michele 35:20
Yeah, absolutely.
Glenna 35:21
And we had cash reserves, and we had planned for something, not this. I don't think anybody plan for this. But our biggest struggle right now, which I think is probably what a lot of firms are feeling, too, is just our pipeline, right? So I can look at our numbers now. But we cancelled four prospective client meetings in our studio right before this happened. And just trying to think about our pipeline and how even when kind of the light switch goes on, I don't necessarily know that everything's just gonna pop back to normal. We've got to kind of ramp that pipeline back up again.
Michele 35:57
Absolutely. And I want to touch on something before we move and talk about that. The goal here is for the company to survive. So we may have to make some tough decisions with our employees. Right. And I'm not saying we don't do it without thinking. But the goal is if the company survives, we can re hire them. We can bring them back on, we can get them back full. But if we are so focused on saving other people at the expense of the company, we won't be there to save them later. It will be a very short term save. We're trying to find the long term save in this. And so that means that we all kind of have to share the burden of what gets cut.
Glenna 36:32
Exactly.
Michele 36:33
Right. So I don't know any business owners right now who are saying, "I'm going to take all mine and get rid of all my employees." Everybody's taking kind of equal cuts as we move down to try to survive the longer game here. If we were hairdressers, and nail salons, girl we would have a line outside the door on the day we are out.
Glenna 36:53
That's true.
Michele 36:55
I am laughing at my girlfriends who are like, "I ordered this box a hair color. And I'm having to do my own gel nails or SNS." It's a funny problem to have. But we're watching people looking at what they consider essential businesses. And there will be a line for that.
Glenna 37:14
100%. Yeah, I'll be in that line.
Michele 37:18
I think all of us will be in some line or we'll be sending some of our family members to get in that line. But our businesses are different. And I think I had some in the pipeline that we were having big decisions about big money spans. They've been like, "I need to take a deep breath, and see how I can get through this. I'll call you on the other side." I think every business has had some hit like that, that wasn't something like zoom or one of these businesses that are growing due to where we are. And I also think that based on the way that the economy is taking a hit, some of the people that had that cash are thinking about that cash differently on the other side. So those projects may come back, some of them will absolutely come back. So some will absolutely come back, they may come back immediately. And some may be further down. Some may come back in a narrow down way, they may have reduced scope a little bit. Some may come back bigger because they've been living in their space, and they realize they really do hate this room that they thought they could get by with.
Glenna 38:23
Exactly, yeah.
Michele 38:24
And so I think we're gonna see all of it. But I also think that for some of us, we've got this law right now. I think that we're opening back up in the middle of summer, right?
Glenna 38:36
Yeah. Probably.
Michele 38:37
The middle of summer is already slower. We're recording this right now at the beginning of April. We're already in quarantine to the end of April. If we open back up sometime in May, June, we're already into the summer months. If we all watch the trajectory of the interior design business, we know that it kind of takes a dip in June and July and starts to come back up. And August, September based on where people are located, and when school kids kicks back in. And so we're opening back up during a dip in the normal way of business. And so one of the things that I think we have to also think about is, there may be different types of projects that show up when the lights come back on, then the types of projects that maybe we were working on when the lights went off. And so this is also a good time to think about what I call that interim or transition plan. And I'm not talking about reducing your brand, and I'm not talking about completely changing some of the aspects of your ideal client, but maybe looking at a repackage of your offerings to meet maybe a little bit lesser need than what you were doing before to allow some cash flow to come in to continue on kind of a bridge program.
Glenna 39:00
Exactly. Yep. Yeah, we're doing that.
Michele 39:54
You've given thought to that?
Glenna 39:57
Yeah, we've given a lot of thought, well, kind of similar to you. How you're saying that you are already trying to kind of prepare your clients for a recession before this all happened. One of the goals I had for 2020, even before the COVID pandemic was to really think about developing a new revenue stream for our business with virtual design. I think as our social media reaches grown, I've always wanted to be able to work more with clients who aren't necessarily local Philadelphia. And so we already had some of the groundwork in place, and we're just accelerating that now. So we're launching an extension of our business, which we're calling Glenna Stone Studio. Which is essentially a virtual design services that we can do. Design consultations, and full room designs. And it's, really perfect for more simplified design projects where we can offer the same professional expertise that we have in our studio right now. It's the same designers on smaller, simplified scales. Best of all, we can do it all virtually. And we have actually had just this week, we've had a couple of new inquiries for projects. We've sent proposals and we're starting those projects. We're continuing all of our projects virtually now as it is. So, I'm kind of excited about this, because I already had this vision to do this this year. And now it's just it's becoming accelerated. So I think it's a great opportunity for people to get things done in their house. Quite honestly, the client meetings that we've had via zoom, will either mail or drop off what I'm calling are a little bundle. A GSID bundle of like fabrics and countertop, sample tile, whatever the project is. We will sanitize it, drop it off. And then as we're going through Zoom meeting, they can have that tactile experience and feel and touch things. And everybody said, "This is such a great distraction to what's going on. I'm feeling like I'm doing something productive. And I've been looking forward to this meeting with you." And so it's been it's been a really fun experience. And right now, people are just dying for human connection. So we're able to see our clients and they're able to see us. It's been actually more rewarding than I really thought it would be
Michele 42:02
That's an excellent point. There'll be a lot of businesses born out of this, or new ways of doing business, I think we're going to do so much online. After this, we're going to realize, I mean, it's sad because there is a lot of that human face to face connection. I mean, I'd run my business virtually like this all day anyway. And I do miss the human connection. There are some weeks that I never leave my house until the weekend, just because of the way business goes. And so this has not been as big of a shift for me. I have missed two conferences in the middle of this. That hurts me because I love meeting people and I love seeing them. I'm a hugger. I'd love to hug them and hear their stories and sit with them and love on them. And I've missed that connection. But I do think that those that can shift more quickly to an online presence. To meeting the need online. To recognizing the need that you can solve with online. You might not be able to do everything that you could do before, but what can you do? So this is a great time, like you've done Glenna, is to start looking at what can we do. Instead of just what can we not do, instead of looking at where you're limited. Look at where it's been opened up, look at where your messaging can shift. Look at what you can solve and you reaching out to your clients. Listen, I'm telling you if they are sitting in that house, and there is something that was irritating them, like I'm even irritated in my own house. Sitting in my office, I'm looking at my own window treatments. I'm just like, "Michele, why did you even choose that in the first place? What made you think that was okay?" And I loved them. I have loved him for years, but all of a sudden, it's kind of like, "I'm done." Do you know what I mean? We're like, "I'm done with that." So I even painted the walls thinking if I painted the walls, it would bring out a different color in my drapery panels and I would like the more. So I was sitting here I'm like, "Nope, that did not work." And so my thing now is I gotta figure out what fabric do I want ? See when I can order, it to see when come in, because I got to replace it, right. And I think other people are doing that. So a great thing to do right now is to stay in communication with your clients. Like you said, "You or your team your team calling and find out what's driving them crazy right now. Is there a room that you hate? Is there something that's functionally not working for you? And you know, there may be, again, people that decide they want to homeschool in the fall. Maybe they like the flexibility... This is brought to their family. And so they may have different design needs, than they even knew they needed at the beginning of the year, because they may change the way they do their life. I think we're gonna see a slowdown when people aren't willing to go back to corporate for 14 hours a day. I really think we're going to see your return to family and to insular and being really focused on our home as a haven. And that opens up a huge opportunity for us.
Glenna 44:53
Yeah, it does. I've been thinking the same even since it started. I was thinking not just how people are using their homes differently now, but what is going to stick? And how are they going to continue that usage going forward? And I think, the things that I've been kind of thinking about are home offices. I think now everybody is set up and employers have seen their employees working from home. If they're doing a good job and still productive, they're going to allow them to continue to do that. So I think setting up nice home offices. I also have just been fascinated by the virtual, like gym classes and exercise classes. All of these virtual classes, people have really jumped on board at home, they've adapted to them. On Amazon, one of the top selling categories right now is like small gym equipment. Everybody's ordering all this equipment so that they can work out at home. And I see that the gyms are going to continue to offer these virtual classes. And I think people are going to like that flexibility. Like, "Oh, I can get that instructor that I work out locally, but I don't have to drive 20 minutes there and back. I could do it in my house. So, I was thinking home gyms might be coming a more essential part of the home than they were before.
Michele 46:07
I think you're right. It's so interesting right before we saw this coming, my husband and I had been looking to redo our terrace level, slash basement, whatever you want to call it. And we have multiple rooms down there with Bedroom, Bathroom, we have a workout room, we have a family space. And so we've been working a little bit on it, we went out immediately and bought our paint color and our gym area. I talked to one of my trainers and I said, "Okay, if I can't get to my course and I can't get to my yoga course and I can't get to my strength training courses. I have three different gyms that I work with on all of that. Here's what I want. So I ordered the TRS system. I ordered the things that I had been using that I didn't already have. Medicine ball, I got certain things. We are in the process of redoing our own home gym for that reason. We even have the TV set up because I've got stuff on Vimeo some of them are sending it to me on YouTube. So that I can go down there and work out. Because I'm immunocompromised so even when they turn the switch back on, I'm not going to feel like I can just jump back in a sweaty gym with 300 of my closest friends.
Glenna 47:16
That does not sound appealing
Michele 47:18
That does not sound appealing to me. I'm asthmatic and diabetic and COVID is not going to be my friend. And so I already know that I'm going to probably have to distance a little bit longer than others might have to distance and you are absolutely right that's exactly what we're doing. I'm already thinking of where I'm going to put the mirror. How it's going to be set up and I'm working out how to make the best use of a smaller space because I'm not taking up a whole house to a home gym in. What is the minimal equipment that I need to do what I need to do to get the results I need to get.
Glenna 47:52
Right.
Michele 47:52
You are absolutely dead on because that's exactly the room that we're working on.
Glenna 47:56
Oh, that makes me feel good. This was my thing. I was like, "I think people don't want a home gym."
Michele 48:01
The three areas that I see coming out of this is home gym. I see home office, and I see homeschool.
Glenna 48:09
Mm hmm.
Michele 48:10
Because those are the three areas that I think have been most impacted. And then, in some ways, functionally working on these kind of multi use spaces. Because kids are now doing crafts at home, my husband and I have a jigsaw puzzle pulled out. I'm using my formal dining room, who even has that anymore. I still have one. And it's now everything's moved around. And we've got, you know, a jigsaw puzzle going. So I can see this kind of more of a multifunctional space to maybe what we've had before because we're more family centered. But those three spaces I see are the biggest the home gym, the home office and the home school.
Glenna 48:45
Yeah, I agree. And maybe in nine months in nursery.
Michele 48:51
Or multiples. That's exactly right. We're in a tough time, but it is fun to look and say what could it be? What could be on the other side? How can I pivot? If we hold on to that says, "We're only going to do business the way we've always done business." I think we can be very short sighted and could do damage to the longevity of our company.
Glenna 49:11
I agree. I was listening to like a podcast junkie but I was listening to this podcast with Tony Robbins. And he said that he had learned in the Chinese characters. The way they make that up is the two characters are danger and opportunity to make up crisis. And I said, "We're really trying to focus on... Yes, there's a lot going on and we are dealing with that. So I don't want it to sound like we're not, I am really trying to think about what opportunity is this creating for us right now for our company. And, I've said to our team, we had a big like four hour Zoom team meeting yesterday. Just about setting our our goals for 2020 because things have shifted a little bit. But really what are the opportunities that this brings because I think this is a time for us to hit the pause button. Really kind of evaluate where we are and where we want to go and what opportunities this can bring for our firm and for our industry.
Michele 50:08
I would agree. And look at where you want to be maybe by summer? Where do you want to be by fall? Where do you want to be at the end of the year so that you can move into next year? One of the questions that I'll throw out two, as I heard earlier, so how much should I be planning for what's to come? And I think the planning that we're doing right now, it's an ongoing planning. Because we could have a second wave of COVID in the fall. When flu season and everything comes back out, it could not be COVID, it could be some other business disruption. So we have to always now be in the state of planning. I think if we've learned anything here is that we don't get to take our eyes off of this. We don't get to act like once I've done it, I'm done. We need to keep this in our memory so that we can continue planning and make smart decisions all the time. And so I love all the decision making that you've done Glenna and the example that you're sharing today. Are there any other things that you've planned or done that have allowed you to either pivot or shift to be ready?
Glenna 51:09
You know, honestly, I think the thing that we've been doing is just really looking at our numbers. I mean, this kind of circles back to what we talked to in the beginning. We're doing that weekly. And just trying to control costs and expenses until I see things ramping up again, with the same vigor. I feel strongly this is not doom and gloom, this is temporary and we will go back to normal. And, the challenge is, nobody knows how long temporary is right. That's really scary for a lot of people, employees, business owners, everybody, right? No one likes uncertainty. But I think the sooner that we accept that, that we're in kind of an uncertain environment right now. That we're able to adapt and continue to be flexible and understand that we're gonna have to pivot. Explain that to our teams. Because I think too as as owners, I feel like I had a lot more time to process some of this than my team members did. And I've really tried from the beginning, I've tried to be really open and honest with them about what's going on. What I'm doing. Just keeping them in the loop so that they really feel part of everything. And they have the same knowledge, that I have going into this. And really just encouraging them that this is temporary, because everybody's scared, right? And we're all just trying to kind of get through this the best that we can.
Michele 52:27
I think we to start to realize which of our hires and employees are really have a heart that is in alignment with the heart of the business. They understand you can't give pay that you don't have. We just can't, right. And so when they start to see how they can be part of that solution. We communicate early and we communicate often and we communicate clearly. We bring them in the appropriate level. We let them help strategize appropriately. We made them part of the forward movement of the company and some of the decisions on a appropriate level. They then feel that tie in and that buy in and they're willing to sacrifice to also have the game. And we will start to also realize which ones of our employees are not there with their personal heart maybe doesn't align with the heart of the business. And this is where they're also going to realize maybe in some cases that the employees have the better heart. And the business isn't really one that they want to be tied to. So this is true on both sides of things, right? And just really being able to understand the why behind your business. I think this is a good time to really craft that. What is that driving force? I call it the heartbeat of the business. What are the values of the company? The values of the company and the owner and just like you shared that you're looking at the numbers, you're data driven, but there is emotion because you care about these people. You care about your clients and care about your vendors and you're intentional with that process. The values that you started your company with we should see those values play out in your decision making as we move through a difficult time. It's not like you throw all those good values out the door and go start with a whole new set. So we should start to see our values play out in our decision making.
Michele 52:40
Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, In our call yesterday, I started with our core values. What they are and how they're so important right now in these times.
Michele 54:23
Exactly. So Glenna, it is there any other advice or any other suggestions or anything you would like to throw out? Maybe something that's worked for you and your team that we haven't covered yet?
Glenna 54:34
I think it all goes back to connections into people. And, we start every morning. We have a Zoom call with our meeting, and sometimes it's a half an hour, and sometimes it's five minutes. It's just that connection with people so that everybody can see each other. We also work in Slack. We've started a Slack channel, where we started our top three. We call it top three, and everybody puts up 123. Like what we're working on today, what are our top three priorities. And I that's been really great because we're not in the same office anymore. So we can have an understanding of what everybody's working on that day in case we need to tie into what that person is doing. Or we had a thought, or we wanted to say, "Oh, I found this wallpaper, I wanted to talk to you about the plumbing because I think we're going to change that." Whatever it is, it's just a way for our team to communicate in terms of what we're doing. I think that's something that we're gonna continue doing. Like even when we kind of quote unquote, go back to normal.
Michele 55:32
That's a super great point. Because this again, the opportunity right now is to find the technology that supports a new way of doing business that maybe allows you to streamline. So that going forward if somebody had to work from home with a sick child, they still can communicate through slack. So you have these support systems that are outside of just the face to face conversations. They allow you all to still work as a fluid team. So really great reminder to be looking at technology that way.
Glenna 56:01
Yeah, thank you.
Michele 56:02
Glenna, where can people find you? Where you're kind of hanging out online?
Glenna 56:06
Okay, well, our website is Glennastone.com and our Instagram is Glenna Stone Design. So those are kind of our two top areas to come find us. We're on Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter and LinkedIn and all that stuff like everybody else.
Michele 56:23
That sounds good. Well I will also make sure that all of that is in the show notes so everybody can look you up and find you. You have been such a breath of fresh air today.
Glenna 56:33
Thank you.
Michele 56:34
You are. I mean you would almost think that I had put you there just because I knew you were going to talk about the numbers. I didn't know you were gonna say that but made me love you even more.
Glenna 56:42
Awh, thank you. This is so fun. Again it was the highlight of my week, especially with everything going on. It was really fantastic.
Michele 56:48
It's fun, even in the middle of difficult things to find somebody who is like minded. And it says "Yeah, this is hard. Yes, it's emotional. Yes, I've cried. Yes, I'm struggling some days and others days I feel great. But there's hope. There's opportunity. We're going to make it out of this. And I think that's a voice that we have to hear, hold on. This is about survival. Nobody's expecting you to thrive and be on top of the world right now. We're just all got our fingernails holding on, making the best decisions with the best data and the best support that we can make at the time. And as Maya Angelou says, "When you know better you do better." So the more that we learn how to do business better, the better we can actually do it. And you've shared a lot of really great ideas with us today on how to do business better. So thank you for taking time in the midst of all of this crazy to join me and talk about that.
Glenna 57:43
Oh, thank you so much.
Michele 57:44
Have a good day.
Glenna 57:45
Thanks, you too.
Michele 57:47
Thanks again, to Glenna for all of the thoughts and perspectives that she shared. It's so good to be connected and in community at a time like this and truthfully at anytime. I've created a very intimate focus working group for each of us to make sure that we are working with intention in our business as we focus on the people, the process, and the profits. The Designers' Inner Circle is a place to learn and to share and to be with others on the same journey as you. For more information, you can go to ScarletThreadConsulting.com to check it out. Be intentional about your business and your finances, because profit doesn't happen by accident.