152. Delegation, Productivity, and Deciding What's Next (Listener Q&A Part 1)
How do you manage growing pains when bringing on a new employee while keeping your business running smoothly? That’s the question one listener asked, and it’s one many designers face when adding their first junior designer. Stepping into leadership, delegating effectively, and staying productive can feel like a delicate balance, especially when client projects and daily design work don’t pause for training.
This episode kicks off a two-part Q&A series following CEO Summer School. I dive into practical strategies for onboarding and managing a new team member, pinpointing where delegation often breaks down, and building systems that actually work. I also tackle how to make major business decisions when multiple exciting paths are available, whether that’s growing your current business, pivoting to support other designers, or niching down further.
You’ll walk away with actionable approaches to capture and share your processes in real time, structure productive check-ins with your team, and train employees to think strategically rather than just execute tasks. I’ll also explain why traditional pro and con lists can keep you stuck in indecision, how lifestyle design provides clarity for big choices, and a coaching question that helps you commit to the path that’s right for you.
If you've been thinking about working with me one-on-one, be sure to get on the private coaching waitlist! Click here to learn more about Design to Thrive and secure your spot to be the first to know when availability opens up.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
How to identify where your delegation process falls apart and implement targeted solutions.
Why embracing collaborative leadership changes how you share information with your team.
Simple ways to capture and document processes without dedicating entire days to system creation.
How to train employees to think critically and strategically instead of only executing tasks.
Why evaluating decisions through lifestyle design provides clearer direction than pro/con lists.
How “running from” energy affects your choices and what to do instead.
A coaching question to help you choose confidently when multiple options seem equally good.
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The live CEO Summer School session has wrapped, but you can still participate!
140. Create Your Vision and Pursue it Boldly (CEO Summer School)
141. Running Toward vs Running From: The Mindset Behind Your Goals
148. Are You Solving the Right Business Problems? (CEO Summer School)
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you're listening to episode 152. In this one, I'm going to be sharing listener questions and of course, my answers, following the end of CEO Summer School.
We've got questions around managing a new employee and the processes that need to support that transition, how to create time and set boundaries around your creative space to really make the best projects you possibly can, deciding what's next for the business when you've got multiple ideas, and also just how my summer went. I'm going to be sharing some of the highs and the lows, the wins and the fails, because let's face it, there are always both.
After I got through all of the questions and sharing some of my experiences from the summer, the episode got a little bit too long for what you're all used to. So what I decided to do is to split this episode into two episodes. So it'll be bridged over 152 and 153. So make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so both of these episodes go straight to your feed.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I'm happy to be here with you. My microphone, I'll admit, feels a little foreign to me. I have not recorded a podcast in a very long time, and this will be probably a little bit part of what I share later. But yeah, it's been a while. Thank goodness, it's been a while that I was front-loaded on some episodes because, boy, did I get sick. And I feel like I'm still even a little bit getting over that. It feels like, what am I doing? How do I do this again? What buttons do I push? But I'm so glad to be back here with you.
As we wrapped up CEO Summer School, I sent out an email asking for your questions. And of course, if you didn't get a chance to tune into CEO Summer School, you can always go back in the feed and listen to those episodes. When I sent out this email, I got some really great questions from designers just like you, and I'm excited to dive into how I want to answer those. And it'll be a little bit of my typical mix of coaching questions, some strategy, and ways to be approaching things so that you can navigate the inevitable challenges that we experience as we grow and evolve as business owners.
Before we do that, I want to make sure that you know I love hearing from you. And this is a great time to check in. And I want to ask you, what do you love about the show? What do you want to hear more of, or maybe a topic you want me to cover, or a challenge you want me to help you navigate through an episode dedicated just to saying, "This is my problem. How do I solve it?" If you are about my age, maybe you just thought of Vanilla Ice, Ice Ice Baby. "I've got a problem." No, what was it? "If you've got a problem, yo, I'll solve it." Okay, total tangent from my brain.
Now, the best way to tell me what you'd love to hear more about or a topic you want to hear me speak to is to leave a rating and review. This easily gets your message to me, and it also helps the podcast grow by boosting that algorithm.
The other thing I want you to know about before we get started is that I am offering for a limited time some single strategy sessions. I have not done this in a very long time where you've had the opportunity to book a one-off session with me. I'm going to have the link in the show notes, but if you want to go right there, you can go to desicreswell.com/resources, and I'll have a link there where you can sign up for your session.
And really, my intention for this is I know that I cannot work with all of you, and maybe you're on the wait list for private coaching, or you've been thinking about, "Oh, what would it be like to work with Desi?" And I want to give you an opportunity to get support right when you need it, which might be right now.
And during these sessions, you're going to be supported before, during, and after the session. So you're going to schedule a time for us to meet, and once I get that brief form that you're going to submit when you select a date and time is an email from me where I'm going to be offering you some custom personalized prompts to get some more details, have you start the coaching process, and this is really going to allow us to dive right in. And then we're going to meet on Zoom live face-to-face, where I can help you get exactly what you need to move forward. And then you also get a session summary after we meet that is going to include your takeaways, next steps, and any other resources that could be helpful for you.
So if you are interested in scheduling that, this is limited time. I'm not sure how long I'm going to offer it or exactly how many spots I'm going to have available at this point, but if you are thinking, "Yeah, that sounds amazing," go get on it. The link is going to be in the show notes, but as I said, desicreswell.com/resources.
Okay, now that we've got some of that housekeeping out of the way, we're going to dive into these questions. I'm going to read the question, and then I'm going to provide my response.
All right, so the first one is from a designer who said, "I'm currently experiencing growing pains as I brought on a junior designer for the first time. We've got so much going on that I sometimes struggle to get what she needs to know to help with what she's doing out of my head and in front of her so she can be productive. Obviously, this is a process problem, but what lessons can I focus on to help me move through this effectively?"
All right, so this is a great question and one that you could be thinking about if this is your very first employee that you're bringing on, or it's your fifth. Because there's going to be a certain level of growing pains wherever you're at, and of course, the flavor of those can be different. However, there's always new things to adjust or processes you're going to have to review when you're bringing someone else into the fold.
Now, we want to, first of all, make sure you are solving the right problem. That was episode 148. So I think this would be a great place for you to start looking at where in the delegation process do things fall apart or I find I just don't have the time to really give this employee what she needs. It could be from the very get-go, it could be once you're maybe more in the weeds of the project. Really start to pinpoint where things go sideways or there's miscommunications, there's things falling through the cracks.
Do a deep dive into that, and when I say deep dive, this does not need to be a huge undertaking. Just start to think, "Okay, so where along the path is this happening?" so that way you know where to start with solving this problem and ensure that you're solving the right problem. Because yes, it could very well be process-oriented, it could be a communication piece as well, it could be both. There's lots of areas we could look at.
So that's the first thing. And then the other piece is start to look at some solutions for what are these challenges. Maybe you could involve this person earlier in the process so you're not recapping as much. Maybe you haven't fully stepped into that identity or seeing yourself as the leader, and you're still viewing yourself as the transmitter of information, that maybe it's, "I'm the only one who holds this, and then I disseminate the information."
Maybe it's that you need to start viewing yourself as more of a collaborative leader, where she is coming along with you, where you don't have to dump the information out after the meeting. Let's say that's part of it is I have a meeting with the client, and then I come back, and I want to dive back into my work, but then she knows nothing about what's going on. So that could be a potential solution. She comes along with you. Of course, you're having to pay her for that, but it's one option.
Other things could be, maybe you find ways to record that information that you're receiving about the project as you go, in a way that's easier to relay to someone else. I know one of my clients, she likes to send Voxer messages in the car to her employee after she leaves the meeting. And Voxer is just a voice memo app. Personally, I always have tech issues with Voxer. I prefer WhatsApp, but it's a verbal way to communicate.
The other thing you could do is you could do voice-to-text, so you could just start recording yourself, and this could be just in your phone or using some kind of AI tool to create a transcript that they could then take those pieces and start to plug it into any kind of project management or task management system that you have.
Okay, so that was kind of an example of if this is coming from this, maybe meeting perspective of I'm getting information from the client, and I need to pass it along.
It could be too that something's going on where you have parts of the process or steps in how you approach the design that just haven't been recorded because you've done them all yourself. So just a reminder, you don't have to sit down necessarily and say, "Okay, I'm going to spend the whole day creating this system and process that I'm going to hand off." You could just record things as you do them.
I love to do processes this way, and then you can always go back and kind of touch them up. But it could be that as you do the task, you're also putting down the steps. It could be that you create a screen recording. I love Loom for that where maybe it's you're placing a purchase order, and so then you record your screen talking through the different steps that you're doing, or maybe it's for time billing, how you enter. There's so many different ways that you could use that. And then you're not doing a separate thing, you're just really capturing what you're doing so that you can pass it along.
One of the things this designer mentioned in her question is around productivity, and so I have to make sure that we call out having set meeting times and check-in points throughout the week for whoever you're delegating to, whether that is someone who's freelancing and they're virtual or they're someone who's in your physical space and office.
So we want to minimize holdups, and we also don't want you to be in the state of constantly being interrupted. So this partly helps the employee's mind be at ease. They know when they're going to be able to have your undivided attention. And then the other benefit of this is that you're training yourself as a leader to think ahead about what you want the employee to do and also see more possibilities for them to support you.
The last thing I want to say about this is that I want you to remember that when you bring someone on to support you in your business, you are not only hiring them to do things. You are hiring them to think on your behalf. So you want to make sure you're investing in their ability to think strategically and critically.
Because when we forget this, we become the answer vending machine. So if this support person has a question, I would encourage you also to just start putting it back on her. So maybe there are processes that you do have recorded, and she's asking you a question about how to do something, and it's actually available to her already. So you can put it back on her and say, "Okay, so where do you think you would find that information?"
Or maybe it's something where you typically hold all of the cards, and it's something you want to start letting go of, and so she comes to you and says, "Well, I don't know what to do with this." And then you, as a business owne,r start to put it back on her and say, "Hey, okay, why don't you propose a solution, and then we can discuss at one of those meeting times?" And of course, they're going to miss the mark with this, so let's just be clear about that. They're going to probably come up with something that maybe you wouldn't do or you wouldn't do it exactly the way you would do it, but it starts to train them to think, and it gives you a jumping-off point where you can then have that discussion about whether or not it's the best path forward.
So even just when you're thinking about delegating at these meetings, ask them, what do you foresee getting in your way? What questions might you have? What challenges might come up? Absolutely, this does take more time upfront than you just holding it all and being the answering vending machine. However, it pays off so much in the long run in terms of your efficiencies, your productivity, and the level of support that that employee can provide you.
I hope that was a helpful starting point. We're going to move on to the next question. Now, this designer says, "I'm trying to decide what to do next with my business," and she lists out three options. So one is, continue growing with the same business. Two, switch to supporting designers in a technical capacity, which says is her favorite part. And then three, continue what she's doing, but niche down more. She says, "Lots of options, just can't really decide where to go next. How do I figure out what's right for me? Should I do a pro and con list? Should I do the quadrant method, good like, good don't like, et cetera."
I think this is a great question. We always want to be thinking about what is it that we want to head towards, right? That vision for our business. And I'll say just right off the bat, I think that there can be some value and insights that you'll gain from doing a pro and con list. But what I find, at least for myself, and I think this is true of most people, is that we can usually argue ourselves into conviction either way. I think this is true of this situation, there's probably not a horrible idea here.
There's going to be some changes that have to be made depending on which one she went with, but we could say, "Yep, there's going to be some really amazing things with this, there's going to be some not amazing things with this," for each of those options. And that's because there's always trade-offs with any business model.
With maybe full service, you've got the satisfaction of seeing the design from start to finish and get that level of fulfillment from really seeing your work being built in the world, and you also have contractors to deal with, right? And I know some designers love the construction piece of this, so I'm just offering that as an example. So your tradeoffs might be different.
But if we look at maybe supporting designers in a technical capacity, maybe the benefit of that would be it's more flexible, but the potential tradeoffs could be that it might be a lower revenue model, maybe you might miss having those direct client relationships, you might miss getting out and about more throughout your day, versus always being at a desk. So there's going to be the tradeoffs either way. So I think that's just really important to acknowledge as you start to think about which way you want to pursue.
The other thing I'll just say quickly about a pro and con list is I think that it tends to reinforce the idea that there are good and bad choices or right and wrong choices. Right? I think that's part of the mindset we come from when we do a pro and con list. Is we're trying to logically sort out and get ahead of making a choice that maybe we regret or we think is the wrong decision.
I'll give you a coaching question in just a little bit, but I think what a better approach could be is looking at this from a lifestyle design perspective. If you go back to episode 140, Create Your Vision and Pursue It Boldly, it talks about how we want to be looking at our business vision side by side with the vision for the life that we want to create.
And you could think about what is that vision for my life outside of work, my life when it is the workday, how you want to spend your days, maybe the financials of supporting the life you want to live, or maybe the time that you want to take off or the hours you want to work. It's really important to look at if there is no wrong decision here and these are the things that I really value in a life well-lived according to my version of success, what are some of the ways I could support that through the various business models that I have access to with my skill set.
I also want to... I'm not sure if this is something that's happening for this particular designer, but I think it's important to call out. When we're looking at shifting things in the business, we want to look at and double-check, are there any running from vibes that are happening? Where we're thinking that, oh, if we do this other option, it'll just be easier and there won't be tradeoffs, and I'll just be happy and run off into the sunset.
That goes back to, yes, there's always tradeoffs, there's always going to be pros, there's always going to be cons. And running from energy, what I talked about that in episode 141, Running Toward versus Running From. I think it's always best to be making a decision based on what you want more of, what you're wanting to move towards, versus what you're wanting to push away from or hide from. Okay, so I think just check the energy of your decision-making process.
The other thing you could be thinking about, too is what problems do I want to solve for? It could be just what types of problems do I want to solve during the day? That could be a way to think about how you want to use your mental energy and expertise in the business. But also just what's prompting you to ask what's next? That could be a good one. Are you bored? Do you want a new challenge? Are you feeling unfulfilled in some way? Are you wanting more income? That could be another way to poke around and get some insights.
The other thing I was picking up with on this question is she phrased it as, "I'm trying to decide." So this kind of sounded like it had a flavor of indecision or ambiguity around timeline or when she wants to potentially make some moves or really go all in on what she's already doing.
And the thing that I want to remind the listener and you all listening as well is that the mind often thinks that waiting is going to help whatever decision you know you want to make or feel like you would like to come to feel better. So we think that waiting will help the decision feel better. And I think sometimes, yes, there is sort of this intuitive knowing of it's not the right time for me to strike on this. And we also want to check, is this a decision where waiting is actually going to help it feel better? Or am I just delaying telling myself the truth, telling others what is true for me, and doing something that feels risky or like a big decision to us.
So if waiting's not going to help, then it's good to also think about when do I want to decide? If I know it's not right now and it could be you need to gather some more facts, maybe you want to test out some of these ideas, have some conversations with other business owners who are more in the direction of one of those choices, get clear on what needs to happen in order for you to decide.
And this is when you can think about too, does my brain think that what needs to happen is I need to feel fully confident in this decision? Because that's not always going to happen. Yes, sometimes we have that hit, and we're, "Yep, I know this is it, and I am going to move forward, no looking back." And typically, there's going to be some level of self-doubt, worry, those kind of emotions coming up whenever we make a big pivot like that second option that this designer suggested.
Before we move on to the next question, I want to give you all a coaching question. And this is a great one to get some insights into what it is you truly desire when you are making a decision, and it feels like you're looping in indecision. So I want you to remember that all the choices could be amazing, and ask yourself, "If there was no bad choice, if I knew all of these would work and I'd be happy either way, which one would I choose?" And see what comes up.
All right, that's where we're going to wrap today. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode where we're going to dive into another designer's question, this time around on protecting creative space for creating vision for new projects, even when she's got a team that has projects underway.
So that's going to include touching on boundaries, time blocking, and of course, mindset. That's a huge piece of this one. And then that's also where I'm going to dive into what went well, what didn't go so well, and lessons learned from my summer slowdown. I will talk to you next week.
Until then, a quick reminder, please leave a rating and review for the show wherever you listen to your podcast and let me know what you're loving. You can also book your one-on-one strategy session with me where we'll get to the root of whatever challenge you're facing or decision you're trying to make in your business. And you can go to desicreswell.com/resources, and I'll have the link to sign up there. Until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
We've got questions around managing a new employee and the processes that need to support that transition, how to create time and set boundaries around your creative space to really make the best projects you possibly can, deciding what's next for the business when you've got multiple ideas, and also just how my summer went. I'm going to be sharing some of the highs and the lows, the wins and the fails, because let's face it, there are always both.
After I got through all of the questions and sharing some of my experiences from the summer, the episode got a little bit too long for what you're all used to. So what I decided to do is to split this episode into two episodes. So it'll be bridged over 152 and 153. So make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so both of these episodes go straight to your feed.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I'm happy to be here with you. My microphone, I'll admit, feels a little foreign to me. I have not recorded a podcast in a very long time, and this will be probably a little bit part of what I share later. But yeah, it's been a while. Thank goodness, it's been a while that I was front-loaded on some episodes because, boy, did I get sick. And I feel like I'm still even a little bit getting over that. It feels like, what am I doing? How do I do this again? What buttons do I push? But I'm so glad to be back here with you.
As we wrapped up CEO Summer School, I sent out an email asking for your questions. And of course, if you didn't get a chance to tune into CEO Summer School, you can always go back in the feed and listen to those episodes. When I sent out this email, I got some really great questions from designers just like you, and I'm excited to dive into how I want to answer those. And it'll be a little bit of my typical mix of coaching questions, some strategy, and ways to be approaching things so that you can navigate the inevitable challenges that we experience as we grow and evolve as business owners.
Before we do that, I want to make sure that you know I love hearing from you. And this is a great time to check in. And I want to ask you, what do you love about the show? What do you want to hear more of, or maybe a topic you want me to cover, or a challenge you want me to help you navigate through an episode dedicated just to saying, "This is my problem. How do I solve it?" If you are about my age, maybe you just thought of Vanilla Ice, Ice Ice Baby. "I've got a problem." No, what was it? "If you've got a problem, yo, I'll solve it." Okay, total tangent from my brain.
Now, the best way to tell me what you'd love to hear more about or a topic you want to hear me speak to is to leave a rating and review. This easily gets your message to me, and it also helps the podcast grow by boosting that algorithm.
The other thing I want you to know about before we get started is that I am offering for a limited time some single strategy sessions. I have not done this in a very long time where you've had the opportunity to book a one-off session with me. I'm going to have the link in the show notes, but if you want to go right there, you can go to desicreswell.com/resources, and I'll have a link there where you can sign up for your session.
And really, my intention for this is I know that I cannot work with all of you, and maybe you're on the wait list for private coaching, or you've been thinking about, "Oh, what would it be like to work with Desi?" And I want to give you an opportunity to get support right when you need it, which might be right now.
And during these sessions, you're going to be supported before, during, and after the session. So you're going to schedule a time for us to meet, and once I get that brief form that you're going to submit when you select a date and time is an email from me where I'm going to be offering you some custom personalized prompts to get some more details, have you start the coaching process, and this is really going to allow us to dive right in. And then we're going to meet on Zoom live face-to-face, where I can help you get exactly what you need to move forward. And then you also get a session summary after we meet that is going to include your takeaways, next steps, and any other resources that could be helpful for you.
So if you are interested in scheduling that, this is limited time. I'm not sure how long I'm going to offer it or exactly how many spots I'm going to have available at this point, but if you are thinking, "Yeah, that sounds amazing," go get on it. The link is going to be in the show notes, but as I said, desicreswell.com/resources.
Okay, now that we've got some of that housekeeping out of the way, we're going to dive into these questions. I'm going to read the question, and then I'm going to provide my response.
All right, so the first one is from a designer who said, "I'm currently experiencing growing pains as I brought on a junior designer for the first time. We've got so much going on that I sometimes struggle to get what she needs to know to help with what she's doing out of my head and in front of her so she can be productive. Obviously, this is a process problem, but what lessons can I focus on to help me move through this effectively?"
All right, so this is a great question and one that you could be thinking about if this is your very first employee that you're bringing on, or it's your fifth. Because there's going to be a certain level of growing pains wherever you're at, and of course, the flavor of those can be different. However, there's always new things to adjust or processes you're going to have to review when you're bringing someone else into the fold.
Now, we want to, first of all, make sure you are solving the right problem. That was episode 148. So I think this would be a great place for you to start looking at where in the delegation process do things fall apart or I find I just don't have the time to really give this employee what she needs. It could be from the very get-go, it could be once you're maybe more in the weeds of the project. Really start to pinpoint where things go sideways or there's miscommunications, there's things falling through the cracks.
Do a deep dive into that, and when I say deep dive, this does not need to be a huge undertaking. Just start to think, "Okay, so where along the path is this happening?" so that way you know where to start with solving this problem and ensure that you're solving the right problem. Because yes, it could very well be process-oriented, it could be a communication piece as well, it could be both. There's lots of areas we could look at.
So that's the first thing. And then the other piece is start to look at some solutions for what are these challenges. Maybe you could involve this person earlier in the process so you're not recapping as much. Maybe you haven't fully stepped into that identity or seeing yourself as the leader, and you're still viewing yourself as the transmitter of information, that maybe it's, "I'm the only one who holds this, and then I disseminate the information."
Maybe it's that you need to start viewing yourself as more of a collaborative leader, where she is coming along with you, where you don't have to dump the information out after the meeting. Let's say that's part of it is I have a meeting with the client, and then I come back, and I want to dive back into my work, but then she knows nothing about what's going on. So that could be a potential solution. She comes along with you. Of course, you're having to pay her for that, but it's one option.
Other things could be, maybe you find ways to record that information that you're receiving about the project as you go, in a way that's easier to relay to someone else. I know one of my clients, she likes to send Voxer messages in the car to her employee after she leaves the meeting. And Voxer is just a voice memo app. Personally, I always have tech issues with Voxer. I prefer WhatsApp, but it's a verbal way to communicate.
The other thing you could do is you could do voice-to-text, so you could just start recording yourself, and this could be just in your phone or using some kind of AI tool to create a transcript that they could then take those pieces and start to plug it into any kind of project management or task management system that you have.
Okay, so that was kind of an example of if this is coming from this, maybe meeting perspective of I'm getting information from the client, and I need to pass it along.
It could be too that something's going on where you have parts of the process or steps in how you approach the design that just haven't been recorded because you've done them all yourself. So just a reminder, you don't have to sit down necessarily and say, "Okay, I'm going to spend the whole day creating this system and process that I'm going to hand off." You could just record things as you do them.
I love to do processes this way, and then you can always go back and kind of touch them up. But it could be that as you do the task, you're also putting down the steps. It could be that you create a screen recording. I love Loom for that where maybe it's you're placing a purchase order, and so then you record your screen talking through the different steps that you're doing, or maybe it's for time billing, how you enter. There's so many different ways that you could use that. And then you're not doing a separate thing, you're just really capturing what you're doing so that you can pass it along.
One of the things this designer mentioned in her question is around productivity, and so I have to make sure that we call out having set meeting times and check-in points throughout the week for whoever you're delegating to, whether that is someone who's freelancing and they're virtual or they're someone who's in your physical space and office.
So we want to minimize holdups, and we also don't want you to be in the state of constantly being interrupted. So this partly helps the employee's mind be at ease. They know when they're going to be able to have your undivided attention. And then the other benefit of this is that you're training yourself as a leader to think ahead about what you want the employee to do and also see more possibilities for them to support you.
The last thing I want to say about this is that I want you to remember that when you bring someone on to support you in your business, you are not only hiring them to do things. You are hiring them to think on your behalf. So you want to make sure you're investing in their ability to think strategically and critically.
Because when we forget this, we become the answer vending machine. So if this support person has a question, I would encourage you also to just start putting it back on her. So maybe there are processes that you do have recorded, and she's asking you a question about how to do something, and it's actually available to her already. So you can put it back on her and say, "Okay, so where do you think you would find that information?"
Or maybe it's something where you typically hold all of the cards, and it's something you want to start letting go of, and so she comes to you and says, "Well, I don't know what to do with this." And then you, as a business owne,r start to put it back on her and say, "Hey, okay, why don't you propose a solution, and then we can discuss at one of those meeting times?" And of course, they're going to miss the mark with this, so let's just be clear about that. They're going to probably come up with something that maybe you wouldn't do or you wouldn't do it exactly the way you would do it, but it starts to train them to think, and it gives you a jumping-off point where you can then have that discussion about whether or not it's the best path forward.
So even just when you're thinking about delegating at these meetings, ask them, what do you foresee getting in your way? What questions might you have? What challenges might come up? Absolutely, this does take more time upfront than you just holding it all and being the answering vending machine. However, it pays off so much in the long run in terms of your efficiencies, your productivity, and the level of support that that employee can provide you.
I hope that was a helpful starting point. We're going to move on to the next question. Now, this designer says, "I'm trying to decide what to do next with my business," and she lists out three options. So one is, continue growing with the same business. Two, switch to supporting designers in a technical capacity, which says is her favorite part. And then three, continue what she's doing, but niche down more. She says, "Lots of options, just can't really decide where to go next. How do I figure out what's right for me? Should I do a pro and con list? Should I do the quadrant method, good like, good don't like, et cetera."
I think this is a great question. We always want to be thinking about what is it that we want to head towards, right? That vision for our business. And I'll say just right off the bat, I think that there can be some value and insights that you'll gain from doing a pro and con list. But what I find, at least for myself, and I think this is true of most people, is that we can usually argue ourselves into conviction either way. I think this is true of this situation, there's probably not a horrible idea here.
There's going to be some changes that have to be made depending on which one she went with, but we could say, "Yep, there's going to be some really amazing things with this, there's going to be some not amazing things with this," for each of those options. And that's because there's always trade-offs with any business model.
With maybe full service, you've got the satisfaction of seeing the design from start to finish and get that level of fulfillment from really seeing your work being built in the world, and you also have contractors to deal with, right? And I know some designers love the construction piece of this, so I'm just offering that as an example. So your tradeoffs might be different.
But if we look at maybe supporting designers in a technical capacity, maybe the benefit of that would be it's more flexible, but the potential tradeoffs could be that it might be a lower revenue model, maybe you might miss having those direct client relationships, you might miss getting out and about more throughout your day, versus always being at a desk. So there's going to be the tradeoffs either way. So I think that's just really important to acknowledge as you start to think about which way you want to pursue.
The other thing I'll just say quickly about a pro and con list is I think that it tends to reinforce the idea that there are good and bad choices or right and wrong choices. Right? I think that's part of the mindset we come from when we do a pro and con list. Is we're trying to logically sort out and get ahead of making a choice that maybe we regret or we think is the wrong decision.
I'll give you a coaching question in just a little bit, but I think what a better approach could be is looking at this from a lifestyle design perspective. If you go back to episode 140, Create Your Vision and Pursue It Boldly, it talks about how we want to be looking at our business vision side by side with the vision for the life that we want to create.
And you could think about what is that vision for my life outside of work, my life when it is the workday, how you want to spend your days, maybe the financials of supporting the life you want to live, or maybe the time that you want to take off or the hours you want to work. It's really important to look at if there is no wrong decision here and these are the things that I really value in a life well-lived according to my version of success, what are some of the ways I could support that through the various business models that I have access to with my skill set.
I also want to... I'm not sure if this is something that's happening for this particular designer, but I think it's important to call out. When we're looking at shifting things in the business, we want to look at and double-check, are there any running from vibes that are happening? Where we're thinking that, oh, if we do this other option, it'll just be easier and there won't be tradeoffs, and I'll just be happy and run off into the sunset.
That goes back to, yes, there's always tradeoffs, there's always going to be pros, there's always going to be cons. And running from energy, what I talked about that in episode 141, Running Toward versus Running From. I think it's always best to be making a decision based on what you want more of, what you're wanting to move towards, versus what you're wanting to push away from or hide from. Okay, so I think just check the energy of your decision-making process.
The other thing you could be thinking about, too is what problems do I want to solve for? It could be just what types of problems do I want to solve during the day? That could be a way to think about how you want to use your mental energy and expertise in the business. But also just what's prompting you to ask what's next? That could be a good one. Are you bored? Do you want a new challenge? Are you feeling unfulfilled in some way? Are you wanting more income? That could be another way to poke around and get some insights.
The other thing I was picking up with on this question is she phrased it as, "I'm trying to decide." So this kind of sounded like it had a flavor of indecision or ambiguity around timeline or when she wants to potentially make some moves or really go all in on what she's already doing.
And the thing that I want to remind the listener and you all listening as well is that the mind often thinks that waiting is going to help whatever decision you know you want to make or feel like you would like to come to feel better. So we think that waiting will help the decision feel better. And I think sometimes, yes, there is sort of this intuitive knowing of it's not the right time for me to strike on this. And we also want to check, is this a decision where waiting is actually going to help it feel better? Or am I just delaying telling myself the truth, telling others what is true for me, and doing something that feels risky or like a big decision to us.
So if waiting's not going to help, then it's good to also think about when do I want to decide? If I know it's not right now and it could be you need to gather some more facts, maybe you want to test out some of these ideas, have some conversations with other business owners who are more in the direction of one of those choices, get clear on what needs to happen in order for you to decide.
And this is when you can think about too, does my brain think that what needs to happen is I need to feel fully confident in this decision? Because that's not always going to happen. Yes, sometimes we have that hit, and we're, "Yep, I know this is it, and I am going to move forward, no looking back." And typically, there's going to be some level of self-doubt, worry, those kind of emotions coming up whenever we make a big pivot like that second option that this designer suggested.
Before we move on to the next question, I want to give you all a coaching question. And this is a great one to get some insights into what it is you truly desire when you are making a decision, and it feels like you're looping in indecision. So I want you to remember that all the choices could be amazing, and ask yourself, "If there was no bad choice, if I knew all of these would work and I'd be happy either way, which one would I choose?" And see what comes up.
All right, that's where we're going to wrap today. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode where we're going to dive into another designer's question, this time around on protecting creative space for creating vision for new projects, even when she's got a team that has projects underway.
So that's going to include touching on boundaries, time blocking, and of course, mindset. That's a huge piece of this one. And then that's also where I'm going to dive into what went well, what didn't go so well, and lessons learned from my summer slowdown. I will talk to you next week.
Until then, a quick reminder, please leave a rating and review for the show wherever you listen to your podcast and let me know what you're loving. You can also book your one-on-one strategy session with me where we'll get to the root of whatever challenge you're facing or decision you're trying to make in your business. And you can go to desicreswell.com/resources, and I'll have the link to sign up there. Until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
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