259: The Power of Feasibility

Michele Williams: Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice.

Robyn Thomas is joining us today on the podcast. Robyn has an architecture degree from Auburn, and she has merged that education with her love of design to provide a one-stop architecture offer specializing in design completion and optimization. She calls it the master of done. I love that so much. Today we're going to delve into feasibility, what it is, why it's needed, and when is the right time for the conversation around it. Enjoy the podcast.

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. Hey, Robyn welcome to the podcast.

Robyn Thomas: Hello, Michele. Thank you so much for having me.

Michele Williams: I am excited, and I understand from just a minute ago that this is your first podcast.

Robyn Thomas: It is!

Michele Williams: Awesome. Well, I have no doubt that it's going to be an amazing conversation and that you're going to do just great. We actually are Instagram friends and we Instagram met, you mentioned one of the podcasts that you had heard, and just were super thankful for how this podcast has impacted you, that meant a lot to me. It's always great to hear when people are really listening. We get so busy, that I don't even think to tell podcast producers who are out there working and hustling, I don't even think to tell them sometimes or to go give them a rating. I don't even think about it, and you reminded me how important it is when sometimes we do this work, and we hear things. But anyway, I appreciate you reaching out and now we're going to get to have a really fun conversation.

Robyn Thomas: Certainly. And you inviting me on, Michele, is just a testament to your generosity. I did not anticipate that happening. I really just wanted you to know my personal appreciation for your platform and your mission in terms of empowering the design community to be strategic and reap the benefits in their businesses.

Michele Williams: Oh, I love that so much. You're right. You didn't come into it with anything other than gratitude and I saw that and I was like, oh, there's a story. I want to know more. So, I think it's funny. Curiosity has been a big part of my last couple of years,  and really trying to be that way. I've always been a curious child. My mother said I used to open all the drawers at my grandmother's house.

Robyn Thomas: Yeah.

Michele Williams: But just having that curiosity of what's happening and how do other people use information and what do their businesses look like? I mean, I think that's how we learn. Right. And so, I'm appreciative that you're allowing us to be curious about what you do today.

Robyn Thomas: Certainly.

Michele Williams: So, tell us, tell our listeners, Robyn where you started, like, what is your degree in? How did you get started in this industry? And then, move us forward to kind of what your business looks like today.

Robyn Thomas: Well, Michele, I know many, of your listeners, and you perhaps, too, can relate to the fuzziness of the journey when you're a young person. You're just a kid, you're not thinking about how you're going to support yourself when you start adulting, so to speak. I was that way. And what I remember, though, is that I still was the kind of child that, like you said, was curious, and I could appreciate the various roles that my family and friends who were older than me, or even adults in my life would play. I was curious about what they do when they went to work. What does going to work really mean? And as I got older and older, now I'm in middle school, now I'm going toward high school, that's when you get a lot of dialogue going about what are you going to do next. By that time in my life, I had identified a love of buildings, and going on family vacations. My pictures were not of a lot of people. They were of buildings. And my fascination, just grew the more I found out about them. However, there weren't a lot of people in my life, that looked like me, a woman, black, in the industries that I was interested in, primarily architecture. So temporarily, I made a little detour in my college enrollment to do engineering. But upon going to campus, and getting ready to go, I was with my mother. We went to visit the school of architecture, and they had an exhibit of all of these 3d models that the students had done in preparation for being evaluated. And I made a decision in my heart and mind that, no, I'm going to go ahead and pursue becoming an architect. So, fast forward to being in school. It wasn't all that I thought it would be. There were various, challenging things about it when we would be likewise evaluated, just like those models I saw. I learned that I had more of a thirst for the business side of design, and I didn't see that being fulfilled in the way the education portion was handled.

But I persevered, graduated, got a job at a firm, and then pivoted yet again in my thinking that I'm still fascinated with this idea of the business of things. So, lo and behold, got into real estate investing and had enough income coming into where, when the recession of about ‘07 and ‘08 happened, I was able to support myself when I was laid off. Really, by that time, I had started purchasing real estate not with the intention that it would be my thing, but more so, as leverage. It just kind of came together. I have been an entrepreneur full-time, I believe now, for over 15 years. Even in that journey, I have not always focused on what I do now in terms of architecture and interior design. That focus really came about recently, about 2016, and since then, I've focused on residential design and a little bit of commercial design.

Michele Williams: So, I'm curious. I love entrepreneurship. That's kind of the way that my things happened, right? I didn't even realize that I'd been an entrepreneur from the time that I was charging the high school girls to come to my house so I could French braid their hair to go out. That's pretty entrepreneurial. When my mom and dad just let these teenage girls come to my house for me to French braid their hair, I look back at that now, and I'm like, that is so wild and so crazy. but we all have this spirit of curiosity about something, so I love how yours has moved you through. Mine has moved me through. I thought I wanted to be a teacher, and then, full transparency, my mother was a teacher, and I saw how much money they made for how much work they did and how much they had to put up with, and I thought, I'm not doing that. And then my dad was in computer software, and I'm like, that seems a little bit more my track because it's the math and the science. I did that for a while, and then mine morphed and changed to workroom and owning a school and doing all the things to now coaching around all of it but having a software company where I pull it back and then I teach and educate at the same time. So, it's just funny how those threads weave in and out of our lives, so that we can follow it. I'm curious, though, in the morphing that you did in 2016, where you created an interior design firm that merges the interior design with the architecture, what was it that drew you into the interior design part? You had the architecture on lockdown. You'd already worked for a company with that. How did you get into the interiors piece as the focus?

Robyn Thomas: Yes, Michele. Well, it's where we live. Yes. The house as a whole is the embodiment of the dwelling space. Like, that's without the house, there is no interior, so to speak. But when we get out of our cars or we walk, if you're a city dweller, into our homes, it's the interiors that really shape our sense of living.

And also there's this immediate gratification you get with interiors. Relatively immediate. To construct a house takes a lot longer than filling out a house, really giving the rooms their atmosphere, mood, and function. Over time, purchasing homes of my own, and renting homes of my own, that's where I began to connect the dots, that when I sat down to do a task and design, it was all appealing to different parts of my brain. But there was something about the interiors that just lit up my creativity. And so I said, you know, if I feel this way, I see the transformative power of interiors. I certainly want to offer this experience to others, to my clients.

Michele Williams: I think mentally, we know that space and interiors can transform a life. But I think sometimes emotionally, when we really connect with it, that's when it makes the difference. It's so funny. Well, last year we spent renovating our kitchen, and it was a long renovation process, not from the actual work, but from the start of the planning till it was getting done. Because we did all of our planning in I'll say March, April, and May. And then we put everything on hold because we had a wedding, and we went to Alaska. So, then we were on hold for June, July, and the middle of August. So those months, just everything had been ordered, the cabinets were in production, everything was happening, and everything went on hold. And then they started in August, at the end of August, and it went through October because we had the whole kitchen put back together. We redid all of our floors. There was a lot going on. But what was so interesting in that is now everybody that walks into my house, when they go look at my kitchen, here's what they say, wow, this looks just like you,  I'm like, I don't know what that means. Is that good? Is that bad? Not that I'm fishing for a compliment. I'm trying to understand what they're really saying. And then they'll say, it's beautiful, but it looks like you. Finally, I said, I need to know what does looks like me is, We just live in a space and, you know, when you walk into a space, I would totally have thought that Robyn lived in a house that looked like that, or it matches your personality, or it fits. So I started asking them, what do you mean? And they said, multiple people. Well, it's light, it's bright, it's cheery, it has lots of color. It's just like, we see you. I was like, that's very interesting. I never realized that I had a look. So that when people saw a room, they thought, that room looks like it fits Michele, that's been a new experience for me. I kind of am hearing just the lens of having just lived through that and then hearing what you're saying. It’s really almost like part of what you do as interior design is you are pulling out the person that you're with aspects of them to put it into the room so that it does feel like them, it does represent them, it does look like them.  I think that's what makes interior design intellectual but emotional and, in some ways, almost, like, I hesitate to say, spiritual, but almost like a place where you feel safe and warm and a haven. It really is. You mentioned the power in that. There's just so much power. You tell me what you think, but I think the goal is to make the space look like the most elevated version of the homeowner, not like just the best work of Robyn or just the best work of the designer. It’s really to make them feel like it's their space because you're going to walk out the door.

Robyn Thomas: Yes. And one key principle that I employ is layering. There's this idea that when we look at a space that has that power, what happened with you and your friends and family making the observation? What is not readily apparent is that it starts from the walls and the floor and the ceiling. Even the way that it's completed. It starts with, okay, we've got drywall, and floor and ceiling. Then we put a finish. That's layer one. Then we come in with fixtures. That's another layer. Then we come in with the lighting. That's another layer. As we're doing those layers, the choices are dictated by or interwoven with just what you said, the units of the person. Like, what is it that is making this home for you, that is weaved into every layer that makes the space?

Michele Williams: Oh, so true. So true. Our son and his wife are redoing their kitchen, and we went over last night to see their selections, their choices, and their layering in. And it's nice because you start to see their personality right in their choices and what they might do. One of the other areas, Robyn that you and I chatted about, like pre-recording that there's a word that you use a lot that infuses, I think, a lot of what you do. I don't even know if you recognize how much that word represents what you do. you may have, but the word was feasibility. We mentioned the questions that we were going to talk about, and every single one of them came up to some version of feasibility. So, before we move into that conversation, I would love for you to define what feasibility means for you and maybe how you just generally think about it in your business, and then we'll get more granular.

Robyn Thomas: I guess feasibility has become a foundational element of conversations that I start with people because it's an often missed step, surprisingly so. We sometimes get so enamored with the result that we don't look at the result and then backpedal our way through it to get to the beginning. And a big part of that beginning is we want to make sure that we have the capacity internally, with the way our lives are to handle whatever the scale of the project is. Because project work can be disruptive, we want to make sure that we have the investment ready to do it.

Michele Williams: Amen.

Robyn Thomas: Oftentimes people have approached me at various stages. I've had several projects where they, unfortunately, had gotten in over their heads, so to speak, and I could easily see feasibility was not addressed to the proper degree. That's how they got there. They ran out of money, ran out of time, picked the wrong team, or various things. So, there's the investment, and then kind of the leap I, just introduced, really, was the choice of who you're working with to complete it. So, part of feasibility is not only the capacity of the client but the capacity of the service providers. Those things have to come together to get the project started on the right foot, because if they're not, can you start a project without assessing feasibility? People do it all the time, especially DIYers, because they say, well, I have this amount of money. It can get me started. I have this amount of time on the weekends. I'm just going to start. We've seen shows like, “I Wrecked My House”. It's a great show because it shows where things just spiraled out of control quickly because feasibility was not in their heads, the after photo, so in their imagination, is what was there. I have found that my successful projects have a proper assessment of feasibility as a common thread.

Michele Williams: I love that. I'm all about feasibility. You know that even though it's not a word that I probably use as often, it's so true. It's really saying, what are the resources available and how can we best use them? It's looking at timing, it's looking at the calendar, it's looking at so many things. I know we are in the next phase of our renovation this year, where we're redoing our family space. Last year was the bathroom, the dining room, all the floors, and the kitchen. This year is the family room that's kind of sitting in the middle of all of it. We've got our budgets that I went in and budgeted every single thing down to new potholders because I was like, I'm not putting my Grinch potholders in my brand new kitchen. They got to go.

Robyn Thomas: Yes. Amazing.

Michele Williams: Right? But down to that, my husband was like, really? You put the hot pot. I'm like, I'm paying for potholders. They need to be on there. All new drawer organizers, all the things that we do.

Robyn Thomas: Uh-huh.

Michele Williams: But then there's a feasibility of a budget, which we have. But then there's the feasibility of the timing and who's going to do what and how they're going to do it. Like, we put a stop to things between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I needed to put up a tree, so we had some things that were half-done. Everything came to a stop and got put away. We celebrated the holidays, and then we started back again. So even thinking of feasibility with what's happening in your life, what has to be done last year, our feasibility is we're out of pocket. From May until the middle of August, we can't make any decisions. All decisions must be made prior to this, and then we'll sit with them. I think a lot of times people don't think that way. We were talking to a couple the other day who were telling us about some friends that they have that started a project, had things delivered to their home, and they don't even know the pricing of how all this is going to work out. They just thought I've got a little bit and it needs to be done. Let's just go. Even when you're working with a professional, I think, not having the conversation. Talk to me for a minute about it. I think you've seen this, why are some people or some situations creating fear in us to have a feasibility discussion? I've had feasibility discussions with people who called me for coaching and I had to say to them that the timing is not right, this is not the most feasible time. Like you don't have the time to put into it or yeah, you got the money and yeah, you have the need, but if you can't do the work, we need to put it off another month. So why are we, sometimes afraid to even have the feasibility discussion up front? Because if we all know that it's necessary and we all know that not doing it and doing it well is going to usually lead to some type of trouble, why don't we do it?

Robyn Thomas: That is an excellent question, Michele. Out of all the things I've asked myself and asked clients, I have not thought of that one. But as you're talking and I'm getting ready to respond, various things come to mind. Interestingly, I was reading an article the other day that talked about how the way our brains are wired, the pleasure of experiencing something now often overrides the pain that will come later. Our awareness of the pain that will come later. Even though we may be aware of the pain, the pleasure that we want of doing something we want now just overrides it.

Michele Williams: Kind of that shiny object syndrome that we hear about, right?

Robyn Thomas: Yes, shiny object syndrome. And the idea that the feasibility is going to be this, almost like the parent coming in and saying playtime is over. We don't want to face that. I don't want to think about that. That's the first impulse.

Michele Williams: Later.

Robyn Thomas: That's later. I don't want to think about that. I know we can start it now and we just go, we just go with it. Because now is what's driving us. It's what's got our attention. I'm not a science major or professional or a health professional, but I would imagine that if we were able to put, some of those, I guess they're diodes or whatever, looks at brainwave patterns when we're having a discussion about our project, I'm willing to say that our brains probably light up when we're talking about the result.

Michele Williams: The excitement. You can see the excitement centers.

Robyn Thomas: Yes. But as soon as someone says those words like budget and all of that, I think the activity just quiets down. It might even shut down for some of us.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Robyn Thomas: I think this is something that I've heard that everybody has issues that they've had with money and sometimes they cause so much anxiety and stress that even just discussing something around having enough money or how much things will cost, causes us to have so much anxiety sometimes that we just don't want to touch it either. So, we don't consciously make these decisions. It's subconscious a lot of the time. But the way we approach the project says it all and when we don't want to do address the feasibility, I think it's rooted in some of those things. I have a good example for you too, of when this happened the other day.

Michele Williams: Yeah, tell me about that.

Robyn Thomas: So, I had a discovery call with a couple. Sounded very pleasant, nice. They were in another state. had already bought land here in Georgia and wanted to get drawings done of their concept for this new build. The wife said, well, I've already combed different stock plans. I've not seen anything that's really exactly what I want, but I have some ideas and I would like to have them drawn. I thought I was doing an amazing thing, Michele, by saying, well, yes, we can address that, but first let me help you understand the feasibility of your project. I might have used the word feasibility, or I might have said something like, let's understand what are some good steps to consider before we get to the drawings. I started talking to her about building costs, what we're seeing in this market, particularly because she's out of state, and what I think her project will cost. It did not matter what I said, Michele. She kept cutting me off to ask, yeah, I hear that, but can you do the drawing? Can you do that?

Michele Williams: She was so focused on the drawing. Because the thing is, to your point, which is where I'm assuming you were trying to lead her, is we can draw anything you want to draw, but we would like to draw something that is feasible for your bank account to build. So, if we draw something that ends up at $6 million and you got $300,000, there's a disconnect. We need more information and we need to fully understand before we go down this rabbit hole.

Robyn Thomas: Right, right. Because I didn't try to do this on the front end and we work together, and then you become disenchanted, disappointed. All those dis words.

Michele Williams: Yeah.

Robyn Thomas: I don't want to be associated with that part of your experience in life. I want this to be a win. I don't like starting what we can't finish and in fact, I recently rebranded my company, as The Masters of Done. That is what we are. We're going to put everything in place to help us get this thing done.

Michele Williams: I love that. It's funny you say I don't want to be part of it, I don't want to be involved when they realize that the feasibility is not feasible. And the truth is, we all might run into that on a project. It's just the earlier we know it so that we can make an informed decision.

Robyn Thomas: There you go.

Michele Williams: Because another decision could lead to that infeasibility. So, they're all kind of connected. I know when I was doing custom window treatments, people did not understand the cost of custom window treatments. I mean, they're not cheap, they just aren't. And they would call, and they would ask and I would start giving them information. I'd be more than happy to come to your home and measure and show you fabrics and design a window treatment. You need to know that the cost is approximately x amount for this width and this length, is that within the range of what you're willing to spend and talk about. And if they said no, it was easier to end the conversation and say, “That’s okay”. There was nothing worse. I mean, it made my stomach hurt to go into a home and lay out the possibilities, create the dream with them, and walk the dream with them. Design the dream in front of them with word pictures and color, draw it out on paper and then give them a price, and then say they couldn't do it. I didn't care if they paid me to come out to do all that. It was still miserable. It's still just, you're leaving with a yuck feeling and yuck for them and yuck for me, and how do they tell me they can't afford it. It was not good. And so, like you, I learned to move the conversation and not be afraid of the conversation, to have it quickly and to have it early. I know even with my son and his wife, they just got married. This is their first renovation that they're doing together. Both of them come from families where we're very organized, very budget oriented, very lay it all out. They've built their spreadsheets and they've got their details. They know the feasibility; they are ready for it before they start it. And they feel so much more peace than others who get halfway in and then realize they either don't have the funds to complete it or they've got to now start making choices, or I didn't know it was going to cost that, none of those are great outcomes. I can imagine that with you having the ability from an architectural standpoint and from that interior standpoint, it really does give you, I'm going to say, a depth of understanding of the feasibility. Not just from what can we put into the home to make it beautiful, but structurally, what needs to happen and what are the current costs or even the rising costs. I know I worked with a home builder a couple of years ago, right as the costs were starting to go up and we were having to lock people in as fast as we could and then get bids that weren't going to change because every day it seemed like things were climbing, climbing, climbing and out of control. It got out of control. And then houses that were 250 per square foot to build were now 315 per square foot to build. We were way outside the limit and people were chopping garages off and all kinds of things to stay within budget. The feasibility just started coming in more than ever. What is your special power when it comes to having the architecture and the interiors?

Robyn Thomas: Well, you can appreciate this play on words with your system Metrique. I have a me-trick.

Michele Williams: I like it.

Robyn Thomas: Right. I try to get this cost per square foot metric that's pretty within a range of success because you're right. Things fluctuate. It could even fluctuate from builder to builder.

Michele Williams: Yes.

Robyn Thomas: And then they don't know yet what level of material they want. Some of that is not really decided until much later in the process. But I will start somewhere. I say, okay, for this size home, we're at least 225 a square foot for this basic envelope with a basic finish level. Then I get the calculator going. What really got me into doing that, Michele, was taking a page from the contractor's book. Now, when they estimate a job down to the nail and screw, they have a costing book, they have spreadsheets. It's very systematic.

Michele Williams: Yes.

Robyn Thomas: However, even they themselves know an idea, though. A general number that they give. Some of the ones that are easiest to work with from a design standpoint have kind of given me that over the years, and it really ended up educating me. I said, oh, I remember they told me that right now we're running, so to speak, at 225 to 250. I bring that knowledge right to the calls I have. That's really what I would say is what we want to do as designers, because let's just think about it from the standpoint of the conversation in the client's head, the conversation any of us have in our heads, when we want something, we just want the something. We don't really care what the process is. So, since that's the case, yes, we're designers, but we are facilitators more than we are designers. Design just happens to be our modality.

Michele Williams: It's a very small part of the whole thing in general, after that, it's facilitation.

Robyn Thomas: The design skill that we have makes it what it is. It's what gives us the success of the goal. The doing of it, though, has, like you say, all of these other components that inform that outcome. As a service to our industry and our clients, it really is good for us to know more than just our craft. We want to be able to keep an eye on and a measure of influence on all the parameters and we have the information at our disposal because we work with the builders. Sometimes we may even have to work with a realtor if we're trying to help our client transition from one home to the next. I think about some of the HGTV shows that are focused on that process.

Michele Williams: Right.

Robyn Thomas: We can learn from that. There are indicators and metrics that we can pull into our discovery call, or consultation process that we want to introduce early, way before we get into what color are the walls. We do everybody a service when we do that. And really, quite frankly, we can charge more. Why? We're bringing tremendous value. We're doing the work of several consultants at that point, and so our fee should reflect that.

Michele Williams: You know, I love that. Tell us about a time when you have gone through a feasibility study conversation where you have shared that with a client, and it resulted in an amazing dream project. Have you had one like that?

Robyn Thomas: Yes. So, I did a signature build with a contractor. It was a husband and wife team, and they did this big beautiful home with a guest house, 9000 plus square feet of space. What was neat about our process was that from the very beginning, we would do weekly calls where we would talk strategy. Before one found piece of the concrete was laid. We were already addressing how do we situate this home on the land. How do we choose systems, how do we choose finishes, look, and feel, with the end goal of this being a signature build for your brand? So took the result and we wound the process way back to the elements that could bring it together.

Michele Williams: Yeah.

Robyn Thomas: And that was the one project that I was able to participate in from beginning to end. I ended up working with them to realize so much of what we talked about. What was nice is that, because we had a rhythm of communication from the beginning, it made changes very easy to talk through and implement as well.

Michele Williams: Because you opened up that process. So, then it was just another thing to talk about in the process. It wasn't such an emotional, oh, my gosh, now we have to have a conversation. The conversations were so ongoing. It was just something that came up in the last week or, since the last time we spoke, and now let's work through it.

Robyn Thomas: Yeah. So, what it ended up meaning is that we never had real problems because we always had real solutions.

Michele Williams: Well, it makes me think, Robyn, that it felt like you were on the same team. I think often when we're going into this, we see ourselves as us here and the clients here. So, we're kind of at odds. From what you described, it sounds like you and the client were on the same side, and the build was over here, and the two of you, or the group of you were working together to get to that end result versus, against each other. I look at it as if you were, beside each other at the table, not across each other from each other at the table.

Robyn Thomas: Very nice. Yes, it felt that way. And part of the success was they were good, great listeners. They were very receptive, and I was very yielding because you talked about that, the emotion of it. I think sometimes that gets heightened when we are overly committed to an aspect of the project that we just feel if we don't do it this way, it's not going to be what we thought. I have found that there's always more than one way to have a beautiful, appropriate outcome that captures the essence of what you're trying to create. And that's one thing that they commended me on quite a bit. My willingness to come in strong, strong evidence, strong support for an approach or an idea, but then when they wanted to do something else, just as easily as I came in strong, I was able to just relax and yield and say, you know, that's nice, too.

Michele Williams: Right.

Robyn Thomas: And just move right past. They found that very refreshing because that was one of the things that I think they were afraid of. Like, if we integrate a designer this deeply into our process, will we be at odds.

Michele Williams: And will it end up looking more like you or more like their signature brand? And I think when we go into a conversation like this, at least the way that it's been more successful for me, is to understand the feasibility of the project. I had mentioned on a podcast, I had a professor in college one time tell me that I had the wonderful ability to assimilate and dissimilate. Now, as a 21-year-old, I was like I'm not real sure what all that means in my life. But it struck me, because his comment was, that most people tend to assimilate or to dissimilate, but to be able to go from the beginning to the end and then from the end to the beginning, that's like a skill, because you can see the whole, and then you can see the pieces, and you can see back and forth of how they go together. And that's how my brain works. Like, I met with a client this morning who was telling me that they had a product that looked like this, and they had a product that looked like this. And what happened when the one-off came in and I started saying, well, all of those are just building blocks. Isn't the one-off two pieces of this one and one piece of that one? Yeah. Well, then you already know how to do it. But they weren't able, to just initially see those as completed things, not as individualized pieces that could be pulled from. And that's what, when I do financials, that's why I do top down and bottom up. Tell me what the company is expected to do now. Tell me what you need from the company, and let's find the halfway point where they both intersect so that the company is made whole, but the owner is made whole. How do we find that kind of like nexus right there? Because that's where we want to play. Right? That's what feasibility is. Because, if you think about it from a financial perspective, you can tell me all day that you want to make a million dollars and you want to make $500,000 as the owner. But if you're telling me you got 3 hours a week to work, that's not feasible with this particular plan. So, we're looking at hours, we're looking at pricing, we're looking at investment in the company. We're looking at what the company needs to do. And how much does it cost to run the company? The exact same conversation that you're having with a client around the budget. What is the time? How much do we have to put into it? What will the look be? Just like you're saying there's more than one way. When I tell my clients, I'm like, I'm not giving you a template. I am not going to give you what's worked for every other person, what works for you. What do you want to do? What is your signature business? Let me help you build that. There are certainly principles. There are certainly templates and checklists, but our businesses are not like one size fits all. It can't be let's just go get it. You can't go into a project and go, here's a one-size-fits-all, here's a plan. Build it. We're done, we're out of there. That's just like, it's not the way that it works. And so, you being able to have that conversation with them. Let's take the pieces. Here's the picture. Here's the picture on the puzzle box. Now we got to put the puzzle together. How do we put the puzzle together? Who's putting together the edges? Missing a corner, you can start to make sure that we have the boundary put together to then go build the puzzle.

Robyn Thomas: Very nice.

Michele Williams: And I love that when you are so yielding, and you are curious. Right as we started the podcast with, and you're open because, see, now you're a team member. You're not fighting for Robyn’s way and Robyn’s vision. You're now a team member that says, how do we make this have this look? There's more than one way to achieve that. I bet, so that when you really put your foot down and maybe felt yourself more unyielding, it was highly respected because you had yielded in so many other areas that if they truly trusted you, the moment that you don't yield, they're like, okay, Robyn’s digging in. We should probably listen to this one. Now it's our turn to yield to her. Is that the experience that you had there?

Robyn Thomas: It certainly is. It's so funny, too, because I could sense when it was shifting. Like, I remember we were doing some last installation of the accessories and artwork, and they gave me a lot of latitude with how to position things. We got to this point. There were two walls in particular that we were doing a layer that I think is very important to bring in organic elements. So, it was so funny how certain language I would use like you picked up on. I didn't know how much I had interwoven, feasibility into my answers. Well, I kept talking about organics, and we need round shapes. I want you to do a ratio of rectilinear to round. So, I was positioning the round elements, and I think, the wife, she had a certain way that she's used to putting these particular types of circles. It was like four of them. They were different sizes. But I had this way, I did it and I positioned them, and she said, so why? She just asked, why are you doing that? I said, well, just like in nature, there's the unexpected, and you want to create what I call visual tension. It's much more interesting when there's some visual tension between the elements versus them being in, like, a regular pattern that you anticipate. And she looked at me and she said, okay.

Michele Williams: Because you knew you had earned her trust by that point, that you were in it for the same outcome. I think this is what's so important with feasibility. Now that I'm thinking about it. I love this conversation so much, Robyn. I think that in feasibility, sometimes people again have the idea that they're fighting against you to get something done, even though it's not you, it's what you're bringing up, the budget, the timeline. You're the representation of those things. And they feel like sometimes those things are against them. They feel that negative energy against the timeline, against the builder, against whatever it is in that particular moment. The shift is that we are on a team together, and we are working through the challenges that come with the money, and the challenges that come with the timeline. If we can just mentally position ourselves beside them, linking arms with them to work through the project, I think that that can so shift. I know that's the thing that my clients say when we work together. They're like, we're sharing a lot of private details about the inner workings of their company. And one of the things they always say is, I don't feel judged. I feel like you are standing beside me, helping me fight the battle that I have in front of me, versus I'm having to answer to you for some. That's not what this is. I see your relationship with a client from what you're describing, when you can get that ideal client that allows you to link arms with them, to make the vision their reality, but in a better way than they could do themselves, which is why they call you for all that expertise. It shifts the uncomfortableness of the conversation to make it natural.

Robyn Thomas: It does. It really does. And that's what I was attempting to do with this call, with my couple out of town. I really wanted them to see that I'm coming in as your ally, your facilitator of this vision coming together, and I wanted them to understand. So, one thing they mentioned was that, oh, we've already talked with several contractors as if to say, we've already done this part. I said, well, let me help you understand why I do this. True, you've done this part, and you've sought the counsel of builders, but unfortunately sometimes the builder, in an effort to get a project started, will just give you something that is not unrealistic, but they just want to start. They're not necessarily invested in you finishing, because by the time you realize that you can't finish, they have been paid handsomely.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Robyn Thomas: I ended up doing that not on the call itself, but in a follow-up email as I was just attempting to give them some ideas of how the home could look. Because one reason why I'm doing all of this, too, is that I like to give a demonstration of value before they even start paying our company.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Robyn Thomas: I still have not heard back from them, Michele.

Michele Williams: I was going to ask.

Robyn Thomas: I knew that was your next question. I still have not heard back from them. But I tell you this happens all the time. I don't think a person has gone away. I have a way. All of us, I'm sure, as professionals, have systems and how we organize and do our CRM. I will have them over in a whole archive folder, and they'll resurface in some capacity.

Michele Williams: I think sometimes it's about you're educating them and they're going so fast, that sometimes they don't want to be educated until they have to be.

Robyn Thomas: Yes. And that's where the resurfacing happens.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Robyn Thomas: Part of the education process. They begin to see that, oh, wait a minute, I keep running up against the same stoppers, the same obstacles, the things I didn't want to listen to. I have to now because they keep happening. And it's not because Robyn said it, and it's not because of this person, it must be because it's true, because it keeps happening. Then I love that they end up returning to me because it helps me to understand that, yes, I must have been successful in conveying my personal investment in their success. Them seeing me as that team member who is going to remain loyal to their interest and help them get to the completion, that done, being that master of done for them.

Michele Williams: I love that master of done. It's interesting, I think you made the comment people just want to get started. They're just so excited about the project. The endorphins are pumping, they're ready to get going. They finally made that decision. And really, as a design professional, the job is to help them understand the true scope of the project. I know I see it all the time online, but I've been guilty of it when I was first starting out myself, not maybe having a full understanding of all that it was going to take. I think we've all been there in our early days and we are, equally as excited to get started with that project. So, we take it on without maybe talking about pricing the way we need to, without talking about how we're going to be paid. Then we don't know how to ask to be paid, or we don't know how to send them a bill for something or how to stand behind it. We don't even know how to tell them that it's going to be twelve weeks to get that in and now they don't know what I'm saying. We haven't done enough of our own homework, or we don't have the experience which you can't fast-track. We are equally as excited to just go without our own feasibility.

So, I love that you share how it's not just your feasibility that you've looked into for the areas that you own, but kind of understanding how the feasibility of those other, what, I say are ancillary providers. Like the builder and the plumber and all the other things, kind of knowing what their pricing looks like so that when you're having a conversation, you can say, we're within the boundaries. We're within the limits of where we could move left or right on this project. It’s just so important to be watching all those different things. It's like, I know if somebody comes to me and they're like, I'm using all my money to talk to you, and I'm like, but you’ve got to hire somebody. It's the same thing as saying, I'm going to put all my money into the build, but you have got to have furniture. There is more here than I told somebody yesterday, no offense to Ashley, so nobody come after me, no bad moments here. But there's a home right outside, right almost across the street from my house, a million-dollar home. And they backed up an Ashley truck to it to put furniture in. And, I gasped. My husband's like, what is wrong with you? And I said those people are house-poor. Their house build poor. They either don't understand quality or they're house poor. Because it is rare that you would go buy a truck full of Ashley furniture to put into a million-dollar home in our area at the time, it wasn't before all the inflation pieces hit, it didn't make sense. I think that's where people don't understand how far everything, the feasibility of the whole project, to your point, is done.

Robyn Thomas: Right, and it's why I built, a recent iteration, of my investment guide around an entire process, from the build to interiors for at least five main rooms and even exterior on the front and sides of the home that are going to be seen from the street.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Robyn Thomas: I came up with a number. If you do not have $522,000 to build your 2000-square-foot home, you want to reevaluate your investment. In my guide, I broke down all those numbers, and how we calculated them. What are they for? Down to the furniture. To just paint that picture that if you don't have this to spend, yes, you're going to have something, but it's not going to be that HGTV version that you're going to get. It's still interesting. I still don't know to this day if it's repelling or drawing people to call us because you know how it is with metrics and analytics. As a business owner, you try to keep some gauge on those things. What I feel that it is doing for the ones who do call it is having success in them calling as an educated person. One great discovery call I had, I loved that the homeowner kept referring to the document. He said, now, I remember from the document that you said this, and I said, yes. Then it landed and it resonated with them. So that showed me that they are teachable, they are reasonable, they are open, they're all these traits that they're paying attention to. Paying attention. Part of the formula for a successful client-designer relationship is there. And the only reason we haven't started working together is that the husband's a pilot. He flies huge jets all over the world and, they have children, and the children got sick. I don't know if they had Covid, but they had something. So, they've had a lot of things that have just slowed them down on really locking in on this process. But soon we are supposed to have our initial in-person working consultation to just start unpacking some of the things that I've already started talking to them about in terms of feasibility. So, I'm excited. I think that we have a great set of ingredients for success. Should we go the distance with it?

Michele Williams: I love it. Robyn this has been such a fun conversation, just really dialing into and being clear. You know, there's the saying that clear is kind, and I think that what you're doing with your clients when you're giving them that information, clear is kind and that's what you're being. I think it's also interesting that not all clients want the information. That's telling. Right to your point. If a client that you're educating and telling, and I don't want it, don't care, don't care, don't care, that should be a red flag for your way of working. Because if they don't care and won't engage in a joint conversation at the beginning to kind of set the stage and clear up the scope of work, I can promise you that's going to be one that's fuzzy and difficult all the way through. You didn't tell me this. Well, I didn't know that. I didn't understand this, versus the ones that feel more clear and, on the same page at the very, very beginning.

Robyn Thomas: Yes, Michele, I had a breakup, so to speak, last week with a client. Thankfully, we were at a point of departure that made sense because I had linked them with a great builder that I was familiar with, and had worked with, and they also have an integrated project management process. Part of why it ended the way it did is because I did not pay attention to my early indicators that they were not doing just what you said just then from the front end, wanting to have the full feasibility and scope conversation. That should have been my time to decide that I'm not going to try to do this project with them.

Michele Williams: Right.

Robyn Thomas: But I had this mentality at the time that it's 50/50. Maybe what my sensors are saying is 50% wrong. Well, they were 100% correct.

Michele Williams: Isn't that the case? They usually are. It's kind of. It's the Maya Angelou. When people show you who they are, believe them.

Robyn Thomas: Believe it. Why are you second-guessing? You know this. Come on. But anyway, they paid on time. That was great. It got us through the end of the year, our slowest time, but nevertheless, a lot of good success ahead of us with feasibility. One thing I will say to your listeners, in terms of us all being in the design boat. In the same way, I love to collaborate with clients, I love collaborating with other designers because part of feasibility for me as a business owner is it's not always feasible for me to do every aspect of the project. and so, although we're in interiors, we do not do full-service interior design. So, guess what I like to do? I like to recommend or collaborate with those firms that do.

Michele Williams: That's beautiful. That's wonderful. And then you get to spread the love and spread the wealth. But you're also working with bringing another person in on the same side of the table to get the project to the end. I love that, it's really about being collaborative and that's the position that you're sitting in. Well, Robyn, tell people where they can find you. Where are you hanging out online in the web world?

Robyn Thomas: Yes. So primarily we love it when you visit our site, robynstudios.com. My name is spelled with a y, like yellow. So, it's Robynstudios.com. There is the nucleus of everything because our social links are there, and free resources are there. In fact, we just launched an excellent download. It’s 104 kitchens that are already done, so to speak. A great platform for designers to start conversations with their homeowners. What's neat about it, though, is there's some built-in shopability to it, to fantastic brands. And so that's a great leveraging tool for designers and they don't have to go into a conversation starting from scratch, even though it will end up being a custom build.

Michele Williams: Oh, that is so amazing. Well, Robyn, thank you so much for reaching out and letting me know what you thought about the podcast. Thank you so much for being such a delightful conversation, you're so good at it. This lights me up when we get to have conversations like this. So, I appreciate you reaching out.

Robyn Thomas: Thank you so much. I feel the same way.

Michele Williams: You're welcome. Have a great day.

Robyn Thomas: You too.

Michele Williams: Robyn thank you so much for sharing with us about feasibility. It really is vital to the completion of an amazing project. And maybe those of you listening are considering the feasibility of your own company, wondering where's the intersection between your strategic plan, your financial plan, and how are you going to get things done. How are you going to pay yourself and meet the same needs that the company might have for bonuses or new expenditures or anything like that? We would love to work with you in our CFO2Go program where we help you create the picture, if you will, on the puzzle box for what you want your company to do. And then we help you put in those outer edges to create a framework so that you can then fill in the inside. You can find out more about this offer by going to scarletthreadconsulting.com and looking at the CFO2Go tab. And as always, always plan to be profitable, because profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of thedesignnetwork.org, where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening and stay creative and business minded.