Each year we go through a process of setting our financial goals for the following year, or at least we should. And I don’t use the “should” word without consideration. Many of us hate to be told what to do, so my hope is that as you read, you understand the why behind it and you decide for yourself that you ‘should’ create financial goals.

Every year I choose a word and a focus. In 2019 my focus was marketing, and the word was “intentional”. In 2020 my focus was adapting and codifying my AIM with Intent™ methodology and the word was “grace”. And goodness knows we had to heap loads of grace on everything that year. 2021 brought new challenges and my focus was on building strategic plans. My word that year was “ease”. How do we scale with ease was the biggest question I worked through and tackled in my company and offerings. In 2022, the focus is on metrics and the word for the year is “analysis”.

Owning an interior design business has many challenges and some of the yuck parts of being the boss could be managing people or projects, giving bad news, clearing up miscommunication, and managing parts of the business that are not in your wheelhouse (such as finances, marketing, or HR). No matter what, we all have areas of our company or tasks that we would like to avoid.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “This is all I know how to do?” I have. And therein lies the opportunity to find someone who knows more than you do about that topic. And what you do next depends on the resources you have. Maybe you have lots of time, then you might want to investigate, listen to podcasts, or read books – perhaps even take a course. But what do you do when you don’t have time, and you do have money as a resource? You invest in finding the right answer to fast-track you where you want to go. Today we are going to dig into the question, “Have I taken my design business as far as I can alone?”

If you are like me, your task list grows daily from either new clients, new ideas, or work that has piled up over time. Welcome to business ownership. Much like homeownership, we are never really done.

Let’s focus on how to be nimble in an ever-changing world, and how to grow and scale while maintaining flexibility, which is not always easy. This will allow us to maneuver through any change.

I have seen it before. We go through a goal setting process and then move forward without continually checking to see if the goal is truly attainable and realistic. Maybe you have heard of SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. Today we are going to talk about stress testing our goals to check for attainable and realistic.

The goal in our business is to create management strategies allowing us to easily accomplish our financial goals. In our last blog post (click here to read), we discussed the 5 main money goals that needed to be established in your firm. It is not enough to set the goals if we don’t manage to them.

You have heard it said before that you get what you inspect, not what you expect. Or maybe you have heard this quote, “What’s measured improves,” by Peter Drucker. Both are true. What we focus on expands – so not only the object of our focus, but the way we see it.

Are you feeling overwhelmed with work? Many businesses are right now due to the massive desire our clients are having to control where and how they live since we are spending more time at home.

When I started my company over 21 years ago, I did not even consider that I was building a team from day one. In my mind it was me, myself, and I. In some weird way that could have been a team. Nevertheless, as time went on, I immediately realized I could not do all that needed to be done in my business all by myself. Maybe you remember the truth bomb I dropped in a previous podcast that alone, you are not enough (click here to listen). As my business has progressed, my idea of team has expanded dramatically to merge in with every aspect of my business. In my AIM with Intent™ methodology, we look at team in three ways: internal, external and support. Broken down very simplistically, this means that anytime we are working with ANYONE else, we are a team. This could be a vendor, a client, a contractor, or an employee. Anyone. See, no one is ever in business alone. Because by the very term of business we are creating a transaction with someone – somewhere.

Maybe you are here because the idea of unfounded goals resonated with you. It is easy to create goals without basis in our lives and in our business. We sometimes create goals that we are told we should, and there is no extreme connection to them at all. I have done that and can still find myself doing it if I am not careful. Kind of like creating the ongoing task list that never seems to be done, creating busywork upon busy work that leaves you feeling exhausted and frustrated no matter how organized you are.

Planning makes most things go more smoothly than working without a plan. When times are great it is easy to get caught in the upward swing and assume that there won’t be a downturn or a change of direction that we did not personally create. By documenting our plans for times of transition we can think through, in advance, what we might need. This prior planning can bring us peace when a transition occurs either by choice or force. Consider transition plans not as a bad thing – but as a great way to prepare for business to not function as normal. These could be executed due to sickness like COVID-19, elective surgery, having a baby, going on a long vacation or other life and business event. What is also as important as having transition plans is having a restart plan. Usually upon return to some normalcy business does not go back to full force immediately. Think of a restart plan similar to an on-boarding plan for a new hire. There are many tasks we need to modulate and ease into.

We've talked about cash flow in prior blogs, and we're going to continue talking about cash. It is imperative that we know our cash position at all times. Your cash position is simply how much cash do you have on hand at any given moment and an understanding of what that cash is allocated for.

If you own it, you can change it. And as Einstein stated, we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.

I have spent thirty years developing and implementing systems in companies of all sizes with twenty years of focus in the interior design industry. Using foundational business principles, I have guided hundreds of creative entrepreneurs to improve the three areas of their business that are crucial to creating and sustaining their company – people, process and profits. This has resulted in more freedom of their time, better understanding of their financials and working with less stress.

Ok, you are ready to do it – make the next hire. But that feeling of overwhelm you have and the flutters in your stomach grab your attention and your brain kicks in a bit of doubt….can I afford it? This is a great question and one that deserves an answer. Let’s look at the 5 key areas that we need to consider to see if financially we can make continued and sustainable payroll with this new hire

You are ready to hire. The job description is established, now you need to know how to classify your new help. Which should you choose? Let’s look at your business structure, the type of work you need help with and where you live. And don’t forget, how much money you have available. We will tackle the money issues in the next blog.

When you think you need help it is easy to quickly go into hiring mode without really considering what you need. Here is an exercise I often do (and have my clients do). When you have too much work and feel overwhelmed, start a list of all the things that you would love to delegate to the right person. Ask yourself with everything you do, “if this is the last time I do this would it make me happy?” And if the answer is yes, write it on a list.

What are your goals for the next year, 3-5 years? We want to grow and scale with the future in mind. If your goal is to work the same amount of time with the same types of clients and projects and make more money then your way of scaling may be very different than the person who wants to reduce their time working and make the same amount. If you are wanting to build a firm and have many levels of associates working as a team, that plan is entirely different. Brainstorm and really give thought to where you want to take your business.

At some point in our business each of us may start to feel overwhelmed, stressed and wondering how we can serve more clients – or heck, keep the ones we have going. Maybe we are being asked by others how we are going to scale the business and what that looks like. In this article, we will focus on indicators that could trigger us that it is time to scale. Here are five signs that indicate scaling may be in your near future.