Transcript
Michelle Lynne: Welcome to Designed for the Creative Mind, a podcast for interior designers and creative entrepreneurs to run their business with purpose, efficiency, and passion. Because, while every design is different, the process should remain the same. Prepare yourself for some good conversations with amazing guests, a dash of Jesus and a touch of the woowoo, and probably a swear word or two. If you're ready to stop trading your time for money and enjoy your interior design business, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Michelle Lynne.
Michelle Lynne: Hey, y'all, welcome back to the podcast, Designed for the Creative Mind. This is another solo episode by yours truly, Michelle Lynne. And it's actually a follow up to Episode 105: Sometimes You Have to Slow Down to Speed Up. And I am going to practice what I preach even more so.
For those of you who have been around for a bit or tune in on the social media, it's been a busy season. We have launched our Interior Design Business Bakery a couple times this year, that entails running some nine-day programs, nine-day free workshops. We opened up Studio Works, I'm sitting in here right now. Studio Works is a co-working space, in Addison, Texas, which is just a little suburb inside of Dallas. And it is a co-working space for interior designers, architects, builders, landscape designers, you name it. So that was, that's been a big endeavor.
And then coincidentally, we launched Sidemark, which is a sales and marketing software geared specifically for interior designers. So it's something that I wish I would have had years ago. And when the opportunity presented itself to help customize some software that's been in existence, but specifically tailor it for interior designers, I jumped right on it. But the timing has been a little bit crazy.
Add to that five-year-old daughter, trying to be a good wife to my husband. He had unexpected surgery a few weeks ago. He's healing well, which I'm very grateful for. But we also have the business, ML Interiors Group, which is my interior design business here in Dallas. So needless to say, it's been really pretty busy. And I'm going to be taking some time off from podcasting. Not long, not long, so don't go anywhere, but basically taking some time off. I'm going to reformat and try to bring you some better, more intentional content. Probably wrap it up in two seasons, so that I can give myself a little bit of breathing room in between. And I started this podcast, literally because people were telling me, Michelle, you need to start a podcast, you just have information. I was like, I don't want to start a podcast. But I did and I've really, really enjoyed it. So I'm not going away permanently, I just want to uplevel this.
So oftentimes, when you are an entrepreneur, you almost have to do a test of concept. And just ensure that it is something that is going to serve you well, serve your audience well, meet the goals and details that you want. And that's what we did. So we're 105, 106, 107 episodes in, and I think we've got something good going on. And I just want to make it better for you. But that's going to mean taking a step back or take one step back so I can take two steps forward and serve you well.
In the meantime, I do just really, I'm not down on my knees begging, but I do genuinely request any place you can drop a review where you catch this, it would be very much appreciated. So as we go through and revisit and relaunch per se, probably a couple of months and then we'll be back. And I would love to come back to see some of those reviews. And if you guys have any recommendations or requests or anything like that, feel free to DM me on Instagram. I still manage my own social media. It is Designed for the Creative Mind, same as the podcast, so we're not really original over here, you should be able to find me.
I look forward to coming back. I already have some guests booked, already have some interviews in the queue, and want to do some solo content where I can just share some background and experience and insight and thoughts from where I'm coming from as a business owner. So thank you so much for those of you who have been listening up until this point. Share it with your friends. And until next time, make sure you give yourself a break too. This is currently the second week in June that I'm recording this. I hope you enjoy your summer and have some breathing time for yourself.
Michelle Lynne: Simplify your marketing, simplify your life. If you are an interior designer who is serious about growth, you must check out Sidemark. It is an all-in-one marketing and sales tool. And it's made just for interior designers. Growth comes standard with customer relationship manager, you can attract, convert, and retain clients by nurturing your relationships. Email marketing is to create, grow, and maintain a healthy email list. A social media planner allows you to grow your audience and engagement and it has artificial intelligence. A sales pipeline manager, you can track leads, follow-up like a pro, and you can close more deals. There's plenty of marketing automation, where if you want to send an email update to your client at a certain point in your project, you can send them a congratulations email when a new deal is closed and welcome them onboarding by preplanning it. Would you like to unify your inbox? You can have all of your emails, texts, social direct messaging, a website chatbot, all in one inbox so you're not having to go back and forth between your email and your DMs on your social media. Text messaging, higher open rates and lower opt out rates. It's an amazing way to communicate with potential leads as well as current clients and it's all documented through this platform. Calendar booking, reputation management, a virtual phone number. Like I mentioned, a web chat widget, artificial intelligence-powered content. You just tweak it and make it sound more like you. There's forms and surveys so you can gather crucial information from clients and leads. And there's an exclusive learning content built into this platform. I can't say enough about Sidemark. I use it myself in my interior design business. I've been looking for this platform for over a decade. In all transparency, I'm a co-founder. It's just like furniture. If you can't find it, you customize and design it. So check out mysidemark.com, start your 14-day trial, and life will never be the same. I promise.
Michelle Lynne: Hey, y'all. If you love the show and find it useful, I would really appreciate it if you would share with your friends and followers. And if you like what you're hearing, want to put a face with the name and get even more business advice, then join me in my Facebook group, the Interior Designers Business Launchpad. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feed. It's fun. I promise you'll enjoy it. And finally, I hear it's good for business to get ratings on your podcast. So please drop yours on whatever platform you use to listen to this. We're all about community over competition, so let's work on elevating our industry, one designer at a time. See you next time.
