172: 4 Areas to Build Processes in Your Design Firm
Michele 00:00
Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. Joining me on the podcast today are Debra Scarpa, and Ashley Blaesing of Home Designer Marketing. We're going to talk systems and processes, which I'm sure you all know by now is a very favorite topic of mine. We're going to look at the benefits of having systems, which areas of the company we need to create demand and go over an idea of the types of systems that will make your work, my work, everybody's work much more efficient, enjoy the podcast.
Michele 00:36
Every day, 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 01:10
Hey, Debra, Hey, Ashley, welcome to the podcast.
Debra Scarpa 01:13
Hi, thank you so much, Michele, for having us, we are super excited about talking about processes and systems. They're a big part of what we do for ourselves and for our clients.
Ashley Blaesing 01:24
Excited to be here and share lots of knowledge with everyone today.
Michele 01:28
That's fantastic. So before we jump in, and talk all about systems and processes, which I love, and you love, and probably our listeners have a love hate relationship with, hopefully, we're going to get more on the love side of that by the end. But I'd love to hear a little bit about how you all started your business. Um, how it's morphed and changed and how you've gotten to where you are right now.
Debra Scarpa 01:54
Yeah, I'd love to talk about it. So I've been in business, actually, for over 30 years. And for a lot of years, I actually was working by myself, so I was a smaller business. You know, I couldn't take on as many projects I really couldn't grow. I even if I tried harder and harder, I didn't have those systems and processes, and I couldn't really grow. About eight years ago, I hired Ashley. And then we started growing our team building out processes. We are both graphic designers trained and programmers and content strategist. And then a huge part of what we do is systems and processes that we don't even talk about. But we really started helping our clients’ doing systems and processes because we started doing it for ourselves and realized how much it was helping us and how much it was working. So we implement it for our clients.
Michele 02:53
And Ashley, what about you? So you've you came on about eight years ago? And um, how have you seen the company changed since you've joined?
Ashley Blaesing 03:02
Ever since I've joined, so I was Debra's first employee. And now we've got all kinds of team members everywhere, just helping us help more clients and being more efficient, make us more efficient, make our clients more efficient. And it's really just been an exciting journey to grow the business and be able to offer clients what has helped us grow so much in the last eight years.
Michele 03:28
Now, how did you all decide to niche down to the interior design or the home market, home professionals?
Debra Scarpa 03:37
We were really involved in a mastermind group, and in that mastermind group, they really talked about, you know, needing to have a focus for our marketing and just, you know, in order to develop better processes. And to grow our business, we really need to have a focus, we were really involved in another niche. And that niche didn't really care about design and what things look like. And since we're both designers, it just wasn't a fit, and Ashley, whatever mastermind groups, like she came up with, like working with other designers and doing more design and branding. And we're just both really loving this space. We're loving the people are loving the work. I mean, the work we're doing, I know it's our work, but it's fantastic. Like I'm so excited about it. It's been really fun.
Michele 04:35
Doesn't it make a big difference when you're doing something for people that appreciate it and want it and that's super important, and to just even being in the design industry where visuals are so I mean, we will use a nasty system if it's beautiful, faster than we'll use a great system at this ugly and I know that seems odd, but it's true.
Debra Scarpa 04:57
And I'm also a fine artist and an oil painter and stuff. So you know, I've done a lot of different types. I think if you're a designer, you're just a designer, like in so many ways, and they just really connect with other designers. I don't know, it just seems like feels like being at home. Yeah, it just feels like being at home or other niche was totally different. I actually was working with solar contractors. So it was like, totally different. And just not a fit. We weren't liking the people, we weren't really super excited about the work, or the reach, even though we were getting some awesome results. We just weren't feeling it. So we totally closed it down, which was a really big deal, because we still had a lot of leads coming in, we closed it down, and we totally pivoted. And we're just loving designing and making everything beautiful and functional. At the same time.
Michele 05:58
Yeah, that's when it's great. It's when it's beautiful and functional. So let me ask you this. Debra, when you hired Ashley, did you know then that systems and processes in general, were going to be the answer to your growth? Or did that just come out of the natural work that the two of you started doing together?
Debra Scarpa 06:16
I had no idea. So all I knew is I was working a ton of hours, 60 hour weeks, I was just like, you know, so overworked and so tired from working and doing the same thing all the time. And then Ashley, actually, this is an inside story. She went to school with my son. So that's how we got connected. She had just graduated from college, and I got connected with her. And I just thought, Gosh, I need help so bad. I don't know what I need, but I can't do this anymore. I need to change. And then bringing Ashley on. I had no idea. But she was so amazing. Like systems and processes. Like I don't know if you know the book Traction, I'm sure you do. But like I said to Ashley Oh, can you set me up, like set us up on Traction. She read the book in like, one weekend, has us going on Traction, like in one week, like, she implements things so fast and is really the queen of processes and, and like systems.
Michele 07:29
You know, that's actually a great skill set to have, simply because Traction is a great book. We, my clients, we use it and talk about it. And one of the things that I won't, nobody can see. But you all but even behind my board, we were talking about the owner of the company, and then the integrator, yeah. And what that integrator role and position looks like I was just sharing that with them, one of my elite clients yesterday, talking about the fact that her business had grown to the point if there's a bunch of people doing the work, but nobody integrating the work. And we really needed to not hire a $10 an hour intern to keep that keeps churning through just kind of doing stuff we needed to build. We needed to pull in a person to do full on systems and processes on the day to day, answer the phone, keep the library pulled together, like all those things, not to mention the system's behind that person. Right? It I think it is, it's creativity on its on. There's one thing about being design oriented. There's another thing about being into beauty, but I think there's so much systems and processes are left brain logical, right? They just are. But I think there is a beautiful creativity in that process. I know my first 10 years were with financial software design. So we built software, we don't project counting counts payable. And so when we were building those, we were building a flow of information, we were building a flow of screens, a flow of how you move around the screen, a flow of contact of work of everything, same kind of thing, right. And I looked at that I used to always tell people when I when I left that role, and then I came home and started my own company doing window treatment design. I said I left Windows design to design windows. That's kind of what I did. Very client server online application model. I left that to come home to say oh, let's do something beautiful on your windows. And now you know I have the ability to do all of those things as I create businesses with my clients and long term strategies with my clients and and so, Ashley, I really want to just say you know how awesome it is that you came in and had that and, you know Debra, for you. I think it's important to know that you allowed her to shine in the area where she was really strong. And sometimes when we're the ones who started the company and we bring somebody in, and there can be moments of hesitation of handing off our baby, if you will certain pieces and parts of it, to allow them to explore a different way of presenting data or workflows. It can be it's not, it's not sometimes as easy as it seems. Because it almost I know sometimes even when my team will say to me, I don't think we should do it that way. And I've been doing it that way. For 10 years, there's that there's a rub, where you're like, wait a minute, what do you say, and I have to be like, Michele, chill, take a step back. They're telling you this, because this better just move forward. And so I've kind of conditioned myself to say, Okay, tell me how there's a better way, or tell me how you see that this is going to be more not. I heard something a couple of weeks ago from a friend of mine, and she heard it from Ron Howard, who was on a podcast. And his comment was this. He was directing a movie. And he said that people kept coming up to him and having changes, having changes, suggestions, suggestions. And he finally got to the point where he said, you know, in general, that's a whole creative process. So he said to me, or said to them kind of the the gist of it was, Are you telling me this? Because it's different? Are you telling me this? Because it's going to make it better? Right? Because one is just changed for change, because this is what I do and how I do it. And the other is, here's the change. And there is a defined return on that investment, there is something, some benefit analysis that we've done before we present it. And so that's kind of what I've gotten to with my team is, are we changing it just because this is a tool you're more comfortable with? Or are we changing it? Because there's really a return on investment for that. And so I'm just saying I know how hard it is to start delegating for the first time, something that you've done by yourself, you've kind of created your own internet, we all have a system of some type, whether it's documented or not. And then we're allowing somebody to come in and peek in and say now, could we turn it this way?
Debra Scarpa 12:10
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so glad we're having this conversation. Because I am such a strong like visionary, that as you know, like, if you're really strong visionary, you need to have her super strong integrator in order to be able to, like push back and stand up and stuff.
Debra Scarpa 12:12
And you have to allow it to just do it.
Debra Scarpa 12:35
Yeah, and that's what I was going to say is I definitely make
Michele 12:39
space for both positions, right?
Debra Scarpa 12:41
Yeah, I definitely stepped back and have let Ashley, like be the decision maker, because I'm the idea person, and I come up with so many ideas and stuff. And then actually, even though it's kind of funny that like, she's really an employee, like on the books, but we really are partners, like in this business, because I let Ashley have more power than me. That sounds really strange.
Michele 13:12
No, she needs to, like somebody has got to be able to tell the visionary No, I grew up so I, I'm somewhere in the middle of a visionary integrator, based on who I'm with, and, and kind of the roles that we've assumed. And when I was in a business partnership, my other partner other, I would say, equal partner, because we had multiples. But she was a master visionary, like visionary was her thing. She's like you Debra is like exuding that we would have a strategy session, we would come up with something, I would start figuring out how to integrate it, how to do it, how to manage, she'd already changed our direction six more times. And finally, I would have to say you've got to stop changing things we can never integrate, if you manage it and put it into place if you keep changing. And so we've got to get to a point where we go, we're stopping, we're going to take that creative energy go put it over there, like don't put it over here anymore. Go over there. And, and so then I started pushing back. And I started saying, and we were very much equals, and we had a great friendship. But I would push back and say, Tell me what we're going to do. How are we gonna do this? What is it going to cost more, we're going to get the money back. So I would start jamming it up with questions. And what it did was she found that came back and she said, Here's what I realized. A lot of my ideas maybe didn't really need to come to you because they weren't well thought out. And so what it did was she said, I learned that if I was going to bring something to you to integrate in our partnership, I better already to be able to answer those questions. So I knew and I ran it through my Michele filter before I brought them and if it couldn't pass the Michele filter in her own brain. She didn't even tell me because it kicked out. Right it kicked out and one of the questions was okay, If we put resources here, where are we taking them away from? What are your risks? What? Yeah. And not even just the risk, but what are you now not going to do? Because you can't do it all at the exact same time with the exact same resources, right? I can't spend the same $10 twice, correct it once I speak Spanish. And so when she started kind of walking through that filter, she self edited what she brought to me. And then kind of back to the Ron Howard, when it really was something that could make a big difference. We sat down talked about it.
Debra Scarpa 15:33
Yeah, I think Ashley and I have a really special relationship because, like, I'll push on her, cuz I'm questioning everything and trying to make everything better. So I'm constantly like pushing, can we make this more efficient? Can we improve these systems? Can we work smarter, not harder, like, and then Ashley is the one pushing back and being like, well, we're already doing this, and this is working better, or, you know, then I bring it to her. And then she either approves it, or doesn't approve it, right. And I give her that power to like, be the decision maker. And you know, sometimes it's a little bit back and forth. But we both have the attitude that the end goal is for us as a team to be better. So I think if you have that like mindset of don't take it personal. This is about moving the needle like forward, and you need to be honest. And you need to tell us like, you know, you need to be honest with each other upfront, even if the other person might not be happy about it. But it's the overall goal is as a team to move forward. And we really like working with our clients to with that mindset. Like if they're not liking something, or something's not right, like, be honest about it be upfront, we need to come up with a process to make it better.
Ashley Blaesing 17:07
Now we push back to on our clients, if they come to me with an idea, I'll say, hey, we have this going on already. Why? Why are we trying to rock the boat in the sense, you know, of whatever their crazy idea may be? Or it might be? This is amazing. Let's not figure out how to how, right the integrators, the how we move forward and do this thing, whatever that may be.
Debra Scarpa 17:30
Exactly. And and I want to say that that's why we're also super good in that space. Because a lot, I mean, everybody we're working with all the clients are creatives. They're all like the visionaries, they're not the integrator, some of them don't have a strong integrator. And when they're working with us, Ashley actually becomes like, in a lot of ways, part, like their integrator, and they depend on her to like, keep them in line and help them build those processes. And, and, you know, tell them when they're like going all over the place, right. And it's Ashley says to me, she said, privately, but like, I know how to work great with them, because I work with you.
Michele 18:18
You know, I have, I have a podcast, and I'll link it in the show notes. And it's talking about beginning with the end in mind. And so it's true, whether you're looking at an HR issue in your firm, or whether you're looking at a client issue or process, or with a client, if we're all looking at what we want the outcome to be, and we can agree on the goal. And everybody agrees on that goal, then we're all just working to on how to get there. And so that we can always kind of go back to that point that says we have agreement. And so anytime we can't find a point of agreement, that's when things start to fall apart. But if we can at least agree on what the end result needs to be or look like or feel like, then we're all at least moving in the same direction. So just I'll link that if anybody wants to go back and listen. Okay, so let me ask you this, then, since you all understand, and I'd love the conversation about how it felt for you to let go and meet like, though, and I say that because when you start working with these other companies, they're going to have to do some letting go the whole thing. They're calling you forest like, Yeah, I know, I've spoken to quite a few other firms who do social media or who do logos or branding. And their thing is you sometimes as clients, we can make it so difficult by not letting go. Our designers and work rooms they hate when the homeowner is too in their business. It's like let it go and trust me to do what you have hired me to do. And so I just want to pull it up. And you know, I'm thankful that we just have a conversation about it. Because what we're saying is we acknowledge edge, the decision making that is necessary to let go. Which also means you need to trust who you're letting it go to. Right, which is why the clients hire you why they hire you. It's why our clients hire designers because they trust them. They trust the aesthetic. They trust the work product, they've seen evidence of it. They're not blindly trusting. They're trusting because there's evidence to say this is trustworthy.
Debra Scarpa 20:27
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a super good point is the trust, because I really had to trust Ashley, in order to, she's the head person in the business really, I had to trust her to give that to her in order for us to grow. Otherwise, we just wouldn't grow. And we find that our clients need to trust us to do the same thing to like, let Ashley like shine and do what she's really good at, and our team is really good at. But if you're holding back and wanting to like control everything,
Michele 21:06
Then you're gonna get all of what you've been getting anyway.
Debra Scarpa 21:09
yeah, we're really working with everybody that we work with, needs to work with us as a team, like we are a big part of our team.
Michele 21:19
So what are some of the advantages as we move into the systems and processes conversations? What are some of the advantage of having systems and processes? What did you notice pretty quickly when you started implementing them in your own firm?
Debra Scarpa 21:33
Well, there were several goals. Definitely. One is, how can we manage so much work without we're actually running two businesses, so I Friday marketing and Home Designer marketing, so we run a lot of work? How can we deliver the best quality work the best products, without increasing the cost, right to make it like, really expensive. But it's super important to us to provide like really high quality, like deliverables, we want to get really good results for our clients. So that's like our number one, in order to do that, and to sell that we need to work on our processes and run as lean as possible. So we can consistently deliver that at a reasonable price point.
Michele 22:29
Ashley, do you have anything else to add to that?
Ashley Blaesing 22:32
Yeah, so um, when you are implementing your, your processes and everything, building them out, and all of this, you have a few things at the end of the day that you want to do, you want to save time, you want to be profitable, and you probably want to grow your team, right? You're not going to be able to grow your team. Unless you have processes in place. If you bring somebody on and you have no processes in place, you probably will drive them away, right? Because they're going to go crazy, they're going to come in, have maybe a job description, but not necessarily know how to do anything, you'll probably have tension points with them, because you'll want them to do things a certain way. But if you don't have anything documented or process set up, they're going to do it their way. And there's going to be an issue, right? Of course, being more or disguising. Yeah, and being more profitable just comes from, you know, saving the time, if you're one of the big things that we it's a big thing, and it's a little thing. Something that we help implement for clients is if you're always sending the same email to a new onboarding client, stop typing it every time, right? How many? How much time can we save you by setting up a template for you where maybe you just change one sentence, right? And that's one email out of your everyday kind of day to day stuff.
Michele 23:45
So what are some of the areas that we should be looking at? And then let's dive down into a couple of those areas and talk about it. Like you mentioned, like an onboarding, right, like internal operations. That's one area where we systems, I know, we need financial systems. I teach financial systems like crazy. What other systems like around marketing? Really the main issue, the main functions of a company, in most cases are operations, financial and marketing slash sales. So salutely, and of course, HR, which falls under operations, however, we need to have systems and processes for Yeah, I love that. Right. And I talk about this all the time, but I talked about actually what you said made me think of it. I've hired somebody when I wasn't ready for them before I've done it. And the way that I teach it in my coaching program is I want you to imagine that it's the weekend and you're inviting a couple of come spend the weekend with you. But you don't clean up the guest room. You don't put on clean sheets. You don't buy any food. You have nothing planned. You're not ready for him and the bathroom has a disgusting ring around the toilet and around the tub. And they come in your house. What are you going to say? Go in there and clean up that room and then you can stay. Are you going to be trying to clean it up around them while they're trying to unpack their suitcase? Are you going to tell them oh, and by the way, you have no food for you, no plans, no money to buy anything, we're kind of stuck. But let's all sit here and sing Kumbaya, but you're not going to do that. So when we're inviting somebody into our company, we're inviting them into our business home, and they are spending eight hours a day at our business home. And we need to have that home prepared and ready, and to show them that we are excited and ready for them to join us. And that shows up by having onboarding plans, onboarding procedures, welcoming. You know, I had a client that I talked to, that had worked for another company, and she went into work for another company, nobody greeted, or they didn't tell her where to sit, how to get started. Nobody met her for the first day for lunch. Like, how would you feel like that was welcoming? I mean, just even just those small things. And so having all types of processes, help grow your firm, because right to what you said, Ashley, if I walked in to a weekend home visit, and they had that for me, I probably would leave to go get a hotel room and start making my own weekend plans. Like I'd be like peace out. And now I'd get out of there. And we don't want our new hires to walk in and say peace out. We don't want our clients to walk in and say peace out and everybody else around it. Yeah, right.
Debra Scarpa 26:25
When clients come and work with us, they always think that they're coming for their website, or their logo or all those other things. Clients stay with us for years, because of our systems and processes, and actually being the innovator in helping them build momentum. And so we keep our ongoing clients for years because of that. And I always think of like, the systems and processes, like you said, I think of it in four different buckets. So marketing, sales, you know, operations, and finances, and we actually help our clients in all those spaces, even though we're like just in marketing, right. But like for marketing, we might be setting them up with an online calendar, I think having an online calendar is the easiest way that you can save time and money. Like it's so efficient, a lot of people will push back on me, I don't want to have a consulting call, you know, where I meet with somebody and somebody booking my calendar, I don't recommend that, I recommend having an online calendar. And you might call it a consulting call, but it's really a qualification call. So it's really like a 15 minute call where you're seeing if they're a good fit, and you want to schedule another meeting, right, or another marketing system that we help people set up is appointment reminders. Like if you have automated appointment reminders, there's a better chance that you're not going to waste your time sitting there preparing and waiting for somebody who's not going to show up, right, and we find that the appointment reminders, setting them up. So they're both text message and email. Like we have a system that does both text and, and email, it gets a much better like response. In fact, typically, after the text message is sent out, I get a response. They think that it's like me personally checking in with them, right, which you'll get a better response. And then just having systems in place, like for your project photos and stuff. Again, we're talking about making sure your team is successful, whether they're like an employee or subcontractor, a VA or marketing agency, like if you just have like all your photos dumped into like one folder, and they're not labeled, and there's no information. How are you supposed to like a housing marketing company or a VA or anybody supposed to go into that folder and figure out what you did or what that project is? Or what was the problem that you were trying to solve in the kitchen? That was amazing that you did or that story that goes with the photos. If you don't have that organized? Nobody can? Nobody's a mind reader.
Michele 29:40
You know, one of the things that I love doing too, as a marketing system is being able to share my branding kit. Something that simple, like here are my here's my logo, you know, primary and secondary. Here's my fonts that I use. Here are the colors that I used. Here's the headings that I use and when I use them and all of those things so that people that are creating content on my behalf for marketing, we're creating it to look the same. You know, it's just why are we making that? Why are we making people have to chase down the answers that we can so easily give them?
Ashley Blaesing 30:17
That's exactly it. And I don't want any of our clients or anybody they're working with to have to chase or have to guess, right? Even an example, the other day of a brand kit we were working on for a client. She's like, how would I use this so exactly what you were just saying, plus, let's just say she wants to be featured in some kind of promotion or something in a magazine, whatever, they need a bio, they need the logo, they need all these things. Here, send them this document, you're not needing to wrangle all of these files here. And they're asking somebody for all of these different things. Here's your PDF, brand kit. Everything is in there, just send that to them. It's all there.
Michele 30:55
Right? Well, oh, my goodness, I'll tell you just even going into Canva. I mean, we use Canva a lot all over the place. Going in and just setting up your Style Guide and Brand kit inside Canva saves a tremendous amount of time, it is amazing. You know, so we a lot of even the applications we all use, have a place within them, for us to customize it. So that if you will we have a process or a system that says we look consistent.
Debra Scarpa 31:25
We actually create a brand kit, that's like a month for every client that we work with. So like we have to go through our brand kit like strategy process, in order to have everything that we need to make sure that the clients successful, that is the most important, like, thing that that you need to do for your marketing is have that brand kit.
Michele 31:54
And so what are some of the systems and processes and things that we should put in place for sales?
Debra Scarpa 32:00
I use All The Time. So I do the sales. And I use all the time one off email templates. So like Ashley said, if you're rewriting emails all the time, or even text messages, and they're the same, make a copy of that, and reuse it, I have a whole bunch of I have like, like calendar links in them. So you know, I can select one and then make a few changes, and then send it off. And definitely a sales deck and not just a sales deck, but a sales deck that like is branded that has the same look and feel as your work. So you don't want to have like the meeting with a client. And then it look messy and not branded. People that are buying from them want to make sure that like every single touch point needs to look beautiful, they're buying an experience, they're buying beauty. So make sure that sales deck is beautiful. You don't want to recreate it every time you want to have a template that you reuse, having like a sales pipeline. So you really know how many leads you have, where they are and how many appointments you have, definitely having a sales pipeline set up. So you can see your leads going through the process is important. Using CRM software, we have an all in one CRM marketing software that we use for clients. We know a lot of clients that are writing things down, like our people before they start working with us are like keeping little paper notes and stuff. If you just can't be organized, that's just not very efficient, or even email templates to get Google reviews. We have one client recently that she didn't have a process for getting Google reviews, which is super important for showing up in, in Google Maps Online for local search. If you do anything with their marketing, like for lead gen having a process to get Google reviews and you know, showing up and having that Google My Business Profile optimized is like key for local search. So having a process to build those can really impact your marketing and sales.
Ashley Blaesing 34:30
I'll add on your Google review template really quick. It's important to not just say, hey, client, we would love for you to review us right. The Google review template that we use with our clients is Hey, client loved the blank project. So quickly fill that in, right. I love a Google review for me. And there's a simple bulleted lists of ideas that they can write about. Because if somebody goes and writes a review on Google and it's like, wow, I really love my new kitchen. That's really not very helpful for somebody doing research. Trying to choose a designer. We want to know, you know what the problem you are having is how did they solve it? How was it working with this person, and now our clients get just novel reviews, meaning novel and link. They're huge, right? And those are so much more helpful for the leads that are trying to come into them. Because they're get, they're seeing all of these five star reviews, that's great. But if they're going into detail about all the things they did, and why our client is so awesome, their potential lead is so much more likely to choose them over someone else where their reviews are just like, Yay, I love this project. You know what I mean?
Michele 35:36
Right? That they have some meat in and I miss the same way when I go out to Amazon, and I'm looking at book review. Yeah, if they just say, loved it, I'm like, okay, that told me nothing. Or even when I go look at before I buy clothes online, even if it's a boutique, or something that I know, I read the reviews, it's true to size, if you're between sizes go up go down. I mean, those are things that are helpful. So, you know, we want them to say a little bit more than it was fine.
Ashley Blaesing 36:01
So that process set up to get those so you're not typing that. Yeah.
Michele 36:04
And to make it easy, I think you're in you're right, when you give them ideas of what to talk about. And you embed the link so that they can click, the easier we make things and the more we remove barriers, the better off the results, we usually can, you know, but we're better off with the results, because that just means that we've made it easy for them to show up for us exactly. If they feel like they've got to jump through 52 hoops to do it. They may not do it. As far as CRM, sometimes I know you said you have one that you use the CRM and sales. But a lot of times clients, there are a lot of them out there and it can feel very overwhelming. Yeah, to put those into place. And so do you win if a client came to you, and they already had some of their own systems set up? I mean, I can't imagine that you're going to rip them off all of those systems and put them on on new systems. So how do you help support them for the systems that they're on?
Debra Scarpa 37:01
Yeah, we definitely the first step is we assess it, you know, we assess like what they're using, we've used personally a lot of different ones. So Ashley and our team have worked in many of them. We the one we use now we like because it's an all in one system. So it has like an online calendar, you can do email marketing, you can do one off template, like it's good for sales, marketing, everything actually cuts down a lot on the cost. And you can do things that you can't do in some of the other software. So, you know, a lot of times people will have software, and they're all disconnected. So making sure that they're all working together and connected is is important. That's something that we assess. Sometimes we've even if it's a bigger system, Ashley and I will come in, have a meeting with the client, you know, most of the time, I can just assess it. But if I really need to do a deep dive, and we need Ashley to actually maybe even get permission to look, you know, look in it and get more of a demo of it, then we can assess is it working for you? Is it not? If it's working for them, we have no problem like keeping it. I know a lot of times, that means it's a bigger system, and they're already managing it, they might not even need help managing it. Most of our clients that come on, they aren't really using and he says stones. They're not very technical. So they're really scared about like, you know how to do things, they don't know how to set it up, they might forget how to use it, which is pretty common. I mean, I know people feel bad when they forget how to use it. But one of the things we do is we if we know that it's something that they're not doing all the time, or maybe they're not that technical, maybe we make them loom video training video on like how to do it, and then they can re look at that later for themselves. Or they can send it to like somebody they just hired and they don't have to like connect, you know, they don't have to personally train them on it. It can just send them the loom video. So Ashley does the video training.
Michele 39:24
Oh, yeah. And that. That's an awesome process just for training. Yes, right. When we talk about that a lot. I know I had to record something for somebody last night, we are actually in the process of reworking some of my processes, streamlining a few things and a loom video really just makes all the difference and make it's just so much clearer, more clear than if I were to write it because then they can watch it and then go back and do it. I also do want to point out you made the comment. Two things that struck me and I've seen them play out as well. One is having a whole set of systems where we almost kind of just hobble things together. And one of the really important things that we did on my strategic planning weekend that I just had was we wrote my tech stack. What is my tech stack? That means what is the long list of all the technology that is used in my firm? And we've been sat down and looked at, is there any that we can consolidate? Is there any that we don't need? Can we update one and two, instead of adding a third to solve the problem? Where what are we already invested in? What have we already built out? And how can we make some piece of part of that work. And I think even just doing a full, not just looking at an operation system, or sales system or marketing system, or an HR system or an email system or whatever system, but to take that step back and do a full tech review. Because I then went into my my password list. And when I first just started spouting off, I use this and this because I've run a podcast, I run a business, I run finances, I run a lot of stuff, I use this and this and this and this, and this, and this and this, and I was like, Okay, I think that's it. And then I pulled up my password list, and started going through my tech password list. And I'm like, Oh, snap, and this and this, and this, and this, and this, and this and this. And then we just got a cert marker and started circling like these can probably go away, right? These are we all use here? These could probably go away these can be consolidated, or do we want to find a replacement for multiples to save money? What do we do there?
Debra Scarpa 41:37
I think it's saving money and also saving time? Because if you have time is Yeah, absolutely. Like if you have like multiple software systems that you're using, there's always like updates and changes and like your re learning stuff. Like if you can consolidate that and just be more efficient, right, then that will save like, time and even thinking like trying to switch from one system to another is just a lot of brainpower to share.
Ashley Blaesing 42:13
That's one when I'm talking to clients, and we're talking about consolidating or replacing or whatever it might be, what I hear over and over again, is it drives them insane that they need to log into three, four or five different areas to get information on one client. So when we're consolidating down into our system, when it makes sense to not, not only are we saving the time and the money, but I also say we're going to save your sanity here.
Michele 42:43
Levels.
Ashley Blaesing 42:44
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Michele 42:47
So when we move into the area of operations, then what are some of the systems that you think that we need for operations?
Ashley Blaesing 42:53
yeah, I'll jump in here, Debbie.
Debra Scarpa 42:56
Ashley is amazing, I just want to say that Ashley, it's just like I said, so good at system, so you
Michele 43:03
got to be careful, Debra's, somebody's gonna come swoop her away.
Debra Scarpa 43:07
Oh, you have a good thing going.
Ashley Blaesing 43:11
Where I'll start with this is, it's, we love to make everybody look good at the beginning, right meaning, making this beautiful brand making this beautiful website. Now, there's no point in doing that if once somebody contacts you, and your processes, once they come on with a project are terrible, right, they're gonna see this beautiful presentation of you and your projects and all the good things. And then if they come to contact you, they don't receive a follow up right away, they don't hear anything, it's hard to work with you. It's just gonna, it just, it's not good. So it's very important for us to do the full, you know, experience from how you look how you present it all the way into the client actually working with you, right? So there's the user experience on the website, and then there's the client experience, they really do need to go hand in hand. So when you're talking about operations, you do need to be using a project management software, the end of the day doesn't matter what it is not really matters, what works best for you. So if you're trying to pick one, go watch the webinars, go read the articles, do all the things to pick one. Like I said, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, which one as long as it works better for you. Documenting processes, whether it be inside of the project management software that you're using, or you have an external area that you link out to have documented processes, like a Google Drive or Dropbox, whatever it might be. And being consistent in those processes. They should all be laid out the same way. Here's the things you need the tools you need the Logins here, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Right. So documenting those things. Whether it be if you could start at least with a little video, that's great. Having things listed out too is even better. A lot of businesses out there will have a video limb video made of literally going through. And you could even have that transcribed into literal checkbox steps, right? written out client intake forms that I mentioned earlier, this onboarding forms, that's something that I find a lot of clients do not have. And it has totally changed how they're working. Meaning when a new client comes on, you send out a form to them. And it says, what styles do you like, and maybe has some little pictures for them to choose from? Choose your favorite color palettes? What's your budget, send me your Pinterest board link, anything that could potentially have to do with their project, they go fill out for you, you get no form backs. And here's all the things and you're now you know, prepared for your next call for them. You're not wasting time asking those questions, because they've already been asked, you're discussing the answers, right? So your your meetings with them are going to be way more valuable than if you're just asking questions. And Debra mentioned earlier, those one off email and text message templates, those still work past sales. So if you are going from step one, step two to step three, in your process of working with the client, more than likely, those steps are the same from client to client. So you can at least have a beginning email or text or whatever it might be format for you. That's just a couple clicks, and you can customize it where needed. And then off it goes, whether it be the text itself, maybe you have a welcome packet that you send out every time, wouldn't it be nice if that was already attached to the email template and you're not searching through your files to attach it, you can do stuff like that with email. And with email templates. Another one that we have, that's a really good, just kind of day to day one is using some something to connect with your team fast text message are obviously really fast, but they can get messy really fast, we use a tool called slack, it's kind of like instant messenger. And what you can do is set up what's called channels. So between Debra and I, we have a channel per client. So if there's something going on with white client, a quick little something, it goes into that channel, not into a huge message of mixed things, right. So we have client channels, we have marketing channels for ourselves, we have Idea Channel. So if you could set up something like that with your team. So it's organized communication within the business, it's just going to make your day to day so much easier.
Michele 47:32
Debra, do you have anything to add?
Debra Scarpa 47:34
It just reminded me of one of the things that I like about our CRM software, I know I'm kind of going back to this, but it reminded me of it is that you can look at a client's profile. And you can see all the emails that somebody got, whether they were like email marketing, or you can see, like, if they booked an appointment, you can see any text messages, like you can see their whole history in one place. So you know, that is a huge time saver. So you're not like, Oh, is it in my email? Is it on my phone? Is it like in my email marketing software is in my schedule on my calendar, right? You can just, you wouldn't believe how much time you waste, like doing all these little tasks. So, you know, setting up systems and processes is more about like, saving five minutes here. So even another five minutes here, you know, it adds up at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month or even at the end of the year. Right. That's a whole bunch of money wasted and time waste.
Michele 48:51
It's like compound interest. Yeah.
Debra Scarpa 48:54
Exactly. Like every time you do a little task, can you save time, like one of the big time savers that I'm always asking Ashley to set up for me and clients is like integrating software. So like you get a new lead in. And it comes into let's say they booked an appointment on your website could your calendar or they fill out a contact us form. And then you get that information from the lead. Like you don't want that just going into your email box. You want that going into a CRM. And then you want that CRM to be sending out auto reminders. And then you also want we have it so the information is tagged that goes into our bookkeeping software, it goes into our proposal software goes into our project management software, right and so you have that all integrated in it might, you know it sounds like it's not that much time to take somebody's name and information to set all those other things out up, but it might take 510 minutes Every time to get their contact information, open up those other systems, add it to it. Well, how we have it all integrated, I can just go to my bookkeeping software and create an estimate or an invoice right away because I have the contact information right there. Or I can go into the project management tool, and it already has a new task created that and that person is like under listed as they have an appointment. And it's already I have a template that's added to that that already tells me like, what questions and what conversation I need to have with them.
Michele 50:38
Yeah, that that is actually very important and makes me think about when I go to the doctor, and they hand me 14 forms. And I've got to fill all the same information out at the top of each form. And it irritates me. Oh, my goodness, I could just about climb the wall. When I'm sitting there thinking, How many times do I have to write down my name, my address, my phone number, my age, my date, my date of birth, like, come on, please. And so it's the same kind of thing. And our company. You know, one of the things that I do when I do a financial analysis and we look at it money on the table, it's pretty common that we might say, I worked with a client for 15 extra minutes, and I didn't charge them. Alright, we can quantify that. But we don't think about the 15 extra minutes that we're spending filling out forms or doing something in the firm until it kind of gets us. I had. I've shared this on a couple different things lately. But we had something that happened in my podcast process that like a broken place, if you will, or actually it wasn't broken, I would say it was like a snag or a time waster. What it really was was something that was out of order. And so once in a while it might pick up and we would just work around it. And we keep going and it would pick up we'd work around it. Well, a couple of weeks ago, it jammed up like it happened three or four times in a row. And I went, Oh, stop and wait. Because I'm now paying you and jam this for the podcasts, I'm not going to do that anymore. So we're going to change the order of things. So that if if this is not done correctly, you don't even get to the next step. So it's going to force you to get it right. And we should never have to chase you. And it's just little things. But it's not until for me it wasn't until mine jammed up that I could actually see it. Otherwise, it happens so infrequently that I didn't notice the time that it was costing me. I noticed it when I looked at it, you know, one right after the next is kind of when it showed up?
Debra Scarpa 52:38
Yeah. And that's a really good point is that we find working with companies and even for us that businesses are always changing and and stuff starts your processes start breaking. Right? Whether it was tunity? Yeah, maybe the opportunity changes, maybe, you know, things or maybe your services change a little bit, maybe you know, so things are changing, you need to have, like an integrator or somebody like doing the processes, and the systems and the software and updating those consistently. So that's a lot. What we do with clients is we're consistently, like changing things, because people are always like, well, what are you doing when you're working with us?
Michele 53:30
Right, there's a lot of work that I mean, the minute I'm done with all of my systems and processes, it's time to go back and review them again and feels.
Debra Scarpa 53:38
yeah. What happens is when the systems and processes break down, then you start, stop using them, and then you start doing it manual, and then you're back to like spending a ton of extra time doing it. And there is no way with the amount of work that we have coming in that we deliver monthly. There is no way we could come close to delivering that if we didn't have systems and processes in place. So if the people listening are designers and they're really struggling to get to that next step, focus on those systems and processes.
Michele 54:19
Yeah, I always like to do systems and processes first as much as possible because it can change the hire. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And so lastly, let's look at financial systems. What are some of the, the processes that you think we should put in place?
Debra Scarpa 54:35
I'm a huge, like, finances is actually super important to me, because we do run a bigger team. I have to make sure that at the end of the day, we're profitable and I don't mean profitable, like, you know, we're going on vacation 24/7 And I'm saying where sustainable, we're gonna be in business still, we're gonna be able to still deliver So, I personally have spent a ton of time like streamlining our processes, with, also with our team and everything with Ashley and with our bookkeepers and everything. But having online bookkeeping software proposal software is an absolute must. I actually tried to automate that and have templates build out as much as possible for that running on the traction Profit First model. Like that definitely saves me time. And I have processes set up. So you know, every week I move money from the income account to all the other accounts, and it makes us know where we're at. So I definitely recommend having those in place, weekly meetings, and weekly review of the financials, at least that's what I do, I don't know how often you recommend it. I already talked about integrating your software, your bookkeeping systems and stuff with your CRM and stuff. So when you get a new contact, you don't have to hand enter everything. And then really, making sure you're tracking time and expenses. And you're really calculating that you really know, you know, are you is this project profitable or not, and I mean, profitable, like you're not losing money, you're, you know, it's sustainable. If it's not sustainable, you shouldn't be doing it, right, or you need to come up with a better way to deliver it. In order to make sure that you're, you know, in the green, we don't want to be in the red. So we've spent just as a team, Ashley, and I've spent a lot of time setting up processes and systems to track everything. So we know how to price something exactly. Like we know what we're delivering, we know how much time it's going to take and what team members if we're going to have capacity problems, right? We know that because of our tracking the time and and the expenses. And if, if possible, oh, if possible, you know, we spend a lot of time doing this for ourselves. We're always trying to, you know, with our clients, help them out. Whether it's just retread Profit First or get a coach for that, like yourself, how can we help them be more financially stable, so they can stay in business, and we can help them grow?
Ashley Blaesing 57:48
I was just going to add, tracking your project time, a lot of people. It's difficult right to remember to do number one. And but what it can do is give you so much more insight than just how much time did this project take me? If you can build out your reporting on your projects, I'll say properly, but I'll say properly. It'll show you you know, how long is this certain type of project taking me. But you can also break it down into his the onboarding step or step three, or whatever it is part of your process, eating up more of your project budget than it should, what that will tell you is you need more process work here, you need to bring someone on here, you need to do something to streamline that section better. So you'll have better insight into the percentages of how your process is breaking down in each of your projects. So it's it's more than just saying, Oh, well, I did good on this project or not good on that project, you can really get a good view of how you're functioning as a business.
Michele 58:57
Yeah, and I, you know, I support all that. So I've been doing Profit First since 2015. And one of the few coaches that are if not one of the only ones I don't know how many others. But at the beginning, I was the only one in the interior design space. But there might be a couple of others now, but really, really knowing how money is managed properly in the firm to create that profitable and sustainable business. And I always like to we talked a little bit about calendars. We've talked about time talk made comment about time, this money, project time. I like to call it profit first thing my time and really stepping back and going How am I spending it and am I am I running the capacity every time where am I going to hit capacity? And then not just I think there's something that's important. I think even just having a system to analyze data, because it's not enough to create all these systems that we all have talked about today if we're not analyzing what's coming out of it because It does no good to to do a profit first. That's why we do quarterly analysis to see, am I on track? Am I not on track? Do I need to save more? Do I need to save less here? What do I need to tweet? What do I need to do? does me no good to keep up with time tracking, if I'm not using that to inform the next project that I'm getting ready to work on. So there should also be these what I call oversight and overview systems and processes that say, Okay, now they're done. Like, I have a couple of documents that I have for marketing, one of the things we did was we put a process in place for how often do we want to go update those, so that it's our most current client testimonials and feedback, it's our most current results that we've gotten, because programs change. So you know, if somebody's giving result, but they were in my program five years ago, while that's still an awesome result, it's not indicative of the program that I have today. And so you know, even just knowing what it's kind of, like, I'll tell you this, when I was younger, and when I say younger, I'm a newly married, I worked full time corporate, we had a new home, and I, I'm an organizer and a planner. And so for us to get everything done for me to work full time, my husband worked full time and as to get this new family going, the two of us and our dog, we needed to have some plans in place. So I sat down and thought about everything that needed to be done daily, what needed to be done weekly, I looked at it as we're going to wash the white clothes on Monday, we'll wash the dirt clothes on Tuesday, we'll do on Wednesday, because I get I didn't want to have my entire weekends, just you know, the two of us running around doing all the yard work and cleaning the house. I had it down to every six months, we will do a check on the batteries for the fire alarms. And I mean, I, I had a killer checklist. And I had it on the refrigerator. And we came home from work one day, and my husband is not a plan or an organizer like that. So that will say that is my superpower and it is not his. And we came home from work and our little dog had reached up and pulled that paper down. I tore it to shreds said I feel very similar.
Michele 1:02:14
But I point that out one because it still is still like a family joke that I make all these lists and all of these plans and checklist and you know I I live in well, they're not all here now. But I lived in a house for three dyslexics. And so they they were like whatever mom. Yeah, yeah, honey, them, I'm glad that works for you here. But, but it is important to know, oh my gosh, we need to go back and check the fire alarms in our house or the other day we were cleaning out and we were checking the you know, the fire extinguishers, the the day to say did it expire? If I don't need it, I don't care if it's expired, but when I need it, I need it. And it's the same way in the systems in our business. We need them to work when we need them to work. But if we're not spot checking them, links can be broken. The biggest link I hear all the time is the link between QuickBooks in the bank, they break down all the time for everybody. And so if we're but when we need it, we need it. And what happens is clients are getting charged by their bookkeepers. And I understand that in 15 minute increments for the hour that it takes to reconnect every single bank account. And so if we're not thinking about how we keep things connected, and we don't have some process of review and review, then when we need it and it's broken, usually it's going to jam us up faster than if we did just take a minute to look at it. So I love that you do the audit, I think and the review at the beginning. And I do think that creating a practice ongoing for that, that can be done internally by each person is just as important. So well thank you guys for talking so much about systems and processes. And it's always fun to to be able to just think about it. And I love how together we broke it down into multiple sections and categories in the firm so that you're not just thinking about everything at once. And here's the thing that I would say all of this can get overwhelming. So whether they call and hire you to do it, or they're trying to do it, the truth of the matter is, it's one step at a time. It's one thing at a time. And when I'm asking my clients to document any of their processes, I always start by saying document the next thing you did, don't try to document something that you're not currently working on. It's more difficult. Just think of how do I document the next thing that I'm doing if it's not already documented? What is the fastest easiest way and then you can go back and layer so if you just start with loom like you said then take that run it through otter let it create, you know, a written document for you and move on. Like some things better than nothing but just get started and document what's the next thing that you're getting ready to work on?
Debra Scarpa 1:04:56
Yeah, that's what I found is super good tip. And yeah, you don't want to get overwhelmed. And when you're working on it, it's definitely easier to document something. And then Ashley always has like, a goal of documenting so many processes, like a week. So like we have a weekly meeting, and she has like a goal of meeting, whatever her number is that she sets and that way, it's like, oh, you know, she's not documenting everything, like everything that she does otherwise, that would slow down her work too much, but just consistently, like documenting or updating a certain number every week can be helpful, right?
Ashley Blaesing 1:05:37
Right. And then having that accountability too.
Michele 1:05:39
The accountability, and then knowing how to prioritize, I always like to prioritize one based on what's easiest and what you're doing next. But also, which processes if you document them would open up the floodgates down the line like where it will document the jam, and it'll open up Look, your work is going to flow through accompanies so we may get logged, jammed right here, once you open it, it's gonna come on down, but it's kind of a log jam somewhere else. So just start clearing out the log jams. And then you can go back and do all those ancillary processes around it. But get the major ones done, the ones that caused you so much angst and so much time and so much frustration. And the ones that have you sitting in the closet crying at 3am in the morning, and I'm serious, it's a real thing. But if you are crying in the closet at 3am, something's broken. Right? Something? Yeah. So yeah, well tell us where you're hanging out online. Where can we find you?
Ashley Blaesing 1:06:33
You can find us at homedesignermarketing.com. Also on all socials, our handle on all socials is home designer marketing.
Michele 1:06:42
Awesome.
Debra Scarpa 1:06:43
And they can you know, if anybody's interested on our website, there's a link to book a free console. Happy to talk to you.
Michele 1:06:52
That sounds awesome. Well, Debra, and Ashley, thank you so much for sharing and talking about this. And I'll put everything in the show notes. And I hope you get to talk to some people. Thanks.
Debra Scarpa 1:07:03
Yeah, thank you so much for this conversation was really fun. So thank you so much.
Michele 1:07:09
You're welcome. Well, we'll just organize the world. How about that. Thanks, ladies.
Debra Scarpa 1:07:13
Thank you.
Michele 1:07:15
Thank you, Debra and Ashley for joining us today and sharing about systems and processes. I know this is an area that can really be overwhelming for all of us when we're first starting to take a look at them. But take one process at a time and then just work your way through it. Check out what Debra and Ashley have available if you need help with the establishment and the systems. If you are an already established company hitting the seven figure mark and feeling like you need more help and insight than what you can provide for your business alone. Please go to my website and check out the seven figure case study at scarletthreadconsulting.com/seven-figure-case-steady or under the resources tab and if this is something that you want help with building in your firm please go ahead and complete a discovery form while you're on my website. Let's talk about how to intentionally create more profit in your business because profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of the designnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening, and stay creative and business minded.