Michelle Lynne 0:02
Welcome to design for the creative mind, a podcast for interior designers and creative entrepreneurs to run their business with purpose, efficiency and passion. Because, well, 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 Lynn.
Michelle Lynne 0:44
Hey, y'all, it's Michelle Lynn coming at you solo today. Hi, I'm excited to talk to you today about leveling up your leadership. Not sure if you know this about me, but I graduated college and went directly into a management role. I actually manage restaurants. For gosh, years and years, I started with a small Steakhouse in Albuquerque, then if you guys are familiar with it, it was actually prime rib, not even really steak. It's called the cooperage, which sadly closed during COVID. But it was such an amazing experience. I had a fantastic experience just being hired directly out of college to go into management. The gentleman who owned the restaurant took a leap of faith in me, the managers who actually the general manager and her assistant in the kitchen, were amazing. And this was just really where my foundation and management and leadership started. And I literally I was what 23 years old, 22 years old, I would go up to a table that had a problem. And the who would ask for the manager and more than once they said I don't want to see the hostess, I want to see the manager, because I was that young and that grain. But this is where I started to learn that management is not bossing people around it is more of a leadership role. It is authority it is it is sharing your experiences and communicating with your with your team. So just a little bit of background for me is that I started immediately with the cooperage I was working there. And then I went to a sister property that this gentleman also owned his name was Jim, just fantastic individual. And then I was actually recruited by Romanos Macaroni Grill back in the day. And again, I was still in Albuquerque. And one of the things that I learned when I was approached by Macaroni Grill, I went to Jim, the owner of these other restaurants and he had just taken a wonderful chance on me and was talking to him. And he was so Oh, so fantastic. He told me, Michelle, you need to go to Macaroni Grill, they can give you more experience than I ever can. And even though he said he was sad to lose me just that really sat with me. Because that was that was leadership from his perspective as the owner of the company, losing a valuable player, but also looking out for my best interest in the long run. And I just remember how, how good that felt. And I don't think I realized how much impact it had. Until later in life. When I had the opportunity to bless other people and tell them you need to leave you have better opportunities that then I can provide for you and just genuinely meaning it. So I went to Macaroni Grill worked in Albuquerque for about a year and then went to I was I went to Las Vegas for three months stayed in a corporate apartment. And I literally had this is a completely different story. But I had two, three or four days notice before I had to be out there. So I had to pack everything up, put it in storage and then head out to Las Vegas, where I was helping to train the general managers and the executive chefs to open up the California market. So I was out there. Again, just this little girl heading out to Las Vegas to help train general managers and executive chefs of of this company that I was working for Macaroni Grill. And I was just I was just amazed that I had this opportunity of amazed and grateful. And this at this point, I was working for a gentleman named Rich, who was the area director for Macaroni Grill and again, was just so very gracious and gave me opportunities that I Yes, I earned them because I was a hard worker and I don't know just because I was a hard worker, I guess. But he took that chance on me moved me out to Las Vegas, because he knew I wanted to get back out to California. So after I went from Vegas for three months in a corporate apartment, I moved out to California. I went and opened a couple of macaroni grills in The Southern California area. And then I was given I don't wanna say given I earned the position of general manager of the Macaroni Grill in Westlake Village, California 1000 oaks, one of the two that they're like across the street, and it's the same city. I was there for a few years. And my intention at that point was that I wanted, I had wanted to be a general manager before I was 30. Because if you're familiar with the restaurant industry, it is weekends, nights, holidays, and so forth. And I knew that I didn't want that for the rest of my adult life. So my goal was to be a GM by 30. I made GM I think I was 27. But within this role as general manager, I had 100 employees working at the Macaroni Grill, it was a very high volume, Macaroni Grill, I think we did about $6 million in revenue every year. So if you've been to one of the restaurants back in the day, it was very busy. It was very fun. It was very energetic, but managing all of those people and being responsible for the profitability and the quality and the the culture. And all of that really was an amazing learning experience that I probably took for granted at the time. But what I learned there is that it's important, and I remember this, my executive chef Antonia, literally an Italian chef, amazing. He went on to do all sorts of fun things with his career and Rich's just killing it with the restaurant industry still. But I remember when I when I left Macaroni Grill, and I was getting out of the industry, I was 29 years old. And I remember Antonio saying, Michelle, you're a great leader, but some things that you can do is let your experts be their experts. And I know and he said it differently. But what he meant by that, and it's something that has really stuck with me is as the leader, you don't have to be the best at everything. As a manager, if you're hiring people, if you're you know, growing your team and so forth, you do not have to be the best at everything. So, for example, in this particular instance, what Antonio I'm sure men is like, I'm a freaking a badass Italian chef quit telling me what to do. Now I can lead him and guide him and make sure that we are on the right track. But at the end of the day, why am I bossing him around? Like really, he knows that she does a lot better than I do. So in that regard, step back and let your people shine in their areas of expertise. Let me interrupt myself to take a quick moment to thank satin off Insurance Agency for sponsoring this episode of The designed for the creative mind podcast. Their support and understanding of the interior design, decorating and home staging industries is unrivaled. Satin off understands what our businesses do. And they provide insurance that lets me sleep at night. Yep, this is the firm that I use. And they will do the same for your sleep habits. And your business too. They're more than an insurance agency, they're an extension of my business, they take care of the worry, because they are the experts, which allows me and my team breathing room to do what we do best design beautiful spaces, you can find their contact information below in the show notes. Give them a call today.
Michelle Lynne 8:18
So while I was there, gosh, I look back I was in my 20s and such a baby. A lot of what you want to do is over communicate. Okay, I learned at the Macaroni Grill in this particular in this particular setting, to over communicate and explain, explain, explain. And I didn't think that that's what I needed to be doing as a as a manager, I just did feel like I'm the boss. That's why it's kind like Remember, your mom would say I'm the mom. That's why well, no, you have to explain things to them. You have to over communicate, you have to lead by example. And I have a I have a list of things here that I want to go through with you in just a minute. But I want to give you a little bit of background so that you know that I'm bringing probably two decades worth of experience of leadership. Yeah, maybe I don't know. I haven't done the math but so so from Macaroni Grill, I went in to actually had a little fake job for about six months in between but then I went into recruiting and I was placing accounting and financial professionals on a temporary basis with Robert Half International and I was working for Accountemps and I had no business being in there but I was so persistent with the branch manager. She literally told me if you're as persistent with your accounts as you are with me to get this job you're gonna do great. And thankfully I did well I enjoyed it. I was placing accounts payable, accounts receivable, just accounting clerks. It wasn't anything too crazy, but I was placing them in and around the Los Angeles and Valley area. I did that for about an year your two and then I moved to Dallas, long story how I got here but I was working for a booth Teek recruiting firm I was doing the same thing. But I was placing higher level, you know, controllers and CFOs and financial managers, financial planners, not planners, financial financial planning, I don't remember financial analysts. Anyway. So we were doing that, after about a year at this boutique recruiting firm again, it was such a blessing. I love the people I worked with, I love the people I worked for. It was just a great experience. God's been really good to me when it comes to to my employment. But after about a year, I was promoted into the, what do you call it? Don't remember, but I was promoted over my division. I was division manager. There we go. So I was promoted over to my division. So I had a few people working for me, we grew the division quite a bit, I ended up as area director over a couple of different branches of the same division and had managers working for me. And then we had about 100 people out working for us and so forth. So long story short, the lesson I learned there was literally to be confident, but humble. Our division was killing it, we were making money hand over fist. And yeah, it was making it for somebody else. They paid me very generously, we paid the team very generously. But it was it was someplace where I was still working in the trenches. So I felt like that was very important for me to literally be confident and be able to do the job that I'm managing other people to do, but staying humble. Okay, it's fun to celebrate and kill it and so forth. But nobody likes a bragger. So I did that for 10 years. So I guess it was about 10 years at Macaroni Grill ish. No, not quite, probably five or seven. I don't know, forgive my math, but it was 2008 that I started my interior design business. And that's when I started to stair step out of Management at that at this recruiting firm. And it took me about a year and a half to stair step out of management to train a replacement and blah, blah, blah, and then go full time doing my doing the business I'm in now. So with that being said, now that you know that I can talk the talk and walk the walk, let me tell you a little bit about how to leveling up your leadership. Let's just start with love your team. Love your team. These people are here to support you. There's so many times that I hear from interior designers that they are afraid of hiring another designer, because of whatever. And I just have to say that loving whoever you hire brings in a completely different feeling to an employee versus employer. Debbie and Megan have been with me for six and a half and eight and a half years right around there. Eight and a half, six and a half years, we've hired Nicole, we've hired Amanda, we have Sarah on staff. Now I haven't talked much about this anywhere. But Debbie and Megan are like my sisters. They're like my sisters, because we've been together for so long. And because I genuinely love them. And my point is, is that my business has benefited from the relationship that we have, because we trust one another. We Talk respectfully to one another, they work with me, they don't work for me, they work with me, they don't work for me. It's just a vibe that you bring. And if you come in and you are being a boss, okay, if you're being a boss, your team is going to have a very difficult time loving you back. Okay, it's imperative that you lead your team. And what I mean by that is that you lead by example, you are willing to do the dirty work, as well as with the with the team. So getting on the phone and having a hard conversation with the client to protect your team is imperative. If you've got your own studio and the toilet needs to be cleaned, you're the one cleaning the toilet, you're leading by example, if you're willing to do the dirty work, then your team is going to find ways to respect you in a way that you cannot demand. They're going to find a way to love you in a way that you cannot expect. So, when you are when you are leading your team, you want to share your vision with them. Like what is it that you want to accomplish with this project with this year with this business? What is it that you have in mind is not necessarily something that they can steal, and take with them. But if you involve them in the adventure, well then it is truly a an adventure that you guys are sharing together. And my particular experience is that your team aim will lift you and rise to the occasions if you share it with them. If they don't know where you're going, then they're just on a navigational Hill. Imagine if you are trying to take a family vacation, or you're taking a trip, and you're going from LA to where, you know, in your head, you're going from LA to New York, but nobody in the car knows, so they can't help you drive. Okay, that means you're responsible for driving the entire trip from Los Angeles to New York, no help. The same thing. If you don't share your vision and your end goal with your team. If you surround yourself with individuals who are driven, then that's that, let me let me just say that that's the best people to hire people who are driven because you don't want to micromanage people. Okay, if they're go getters, if they're, if they have visions, that they can share, and help elevate the business. I can tell you from Debbie and Megan's perspective, I think it's still the case is that the difficulty of running a business of running an interior design business is real. So if you can provide a place for individuals to feel like they have ownership, like they have a voice, like they can be heard, they have impact on the business, but they don't have all of the stress of running the business. They have the best of both worlds and so to you, if you if you really want to run the business, okay, so. So in that regard, it's a benefit. And it's a blessing to have a team of individuals who are very enthusiastic. I hired Nicole, when did we start working together, it might have been man last year, so might be almost a year now. And literally just threw her into the, into the mix of everything. And it was Thinkorswim Burr. I didn't have the bandwidth at the time to do a lot of training. It was just kind of like muddling through. And y'all She rose to the occasion, she's kicking ass and taking names, she helps me with operations. And it's just because you didn't even have a job description when we hired her. It was just, you're a person that needs to be here. And she was referred from a mutual friend who said you need this anyway, long story short there. And and it's true. She is a go getter. She has the she has the drive. So if you surround yourself with individuals who share that trait, it makes your life easier as a leader. Y'all, this podcast episode was made possible in part by foyer, a lightning fast interior design software that creates photorealistic renderings. I'm not kidding, you can barely tell that it's not a real room. So why leave your beautiful designs up to the imagination of your client, when you can show them what their space is going to look like. You will sign more clients and get more approvals with the software. It's powered by artificial intelligence, and a whole vouch for its ease. Because if I can do it, anybody can. Because y'all know that my design team are the ones who do all the work, find them in the show notes.
Michelle Lynne 18:07
I think that one of the lessons that's important, I probably learned this more in marriage than I did in leadership or management. But you always need to start with yourself. Like if there's a problem, if there is a bottleneck in your business, or if there is a, if there's any sort of problem within your business, you have to start with yourself. So I think I learned, I think when I was younger, it was always external, somebody else's, it was somebody else's fault. It was somebody else's problem. It was, you know, so and so was being bitchy or whatever? Well, at the end of the day, you have to start with looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, What can I do differently? What can I do differently? Am I the am I the problem? Like am I the cause of the bottleneck? Oftentimes, I am a bit cause of the bottleneck in regards to the team because I over promise sometimes. But in any instance, if you're having a problem with your, maybe you're getting productivity, take a look and see, is there something that you can change, it could even be going to the team and saying, Hey, I've noticed that, you know, we're having a difficult time getting from point A to point B, you know, what seems to be like, first of all, be open to constructive feedback. You can ask him, you know, what can I do differently? Or what seems What what are you guys seeing, and so forth. But make sure that you yourself, that you acknowledge that you very well could be the problem. And if you're coming in to the office or you're coming, you're showing up to meetings, or whatever, and you're grumpy and you're late or whatever, or if you're just being very disrespectful. It needs to be a safe place for your team to tell you that. I don't encourage you to even get to that point. I encourage you to look in the mirror earlier as soon as you start a little inkling of something's wrong. Oh Okay, so I can say that with with my husband, if I feel like we're just not on the same page or things are not going well and hell, you throw a toddler into the mix and things are even more difficult. You have to start with you yourself like how am I reacting? How am I showing up? How am I leading this family? Okay? It's the same thing in your business. Just because you have the title of manager doesn't mean that you need to be a we think here, boss, babe, if Boss paid was fine, but you just need to be a leader. Like no boss, babe, actually, that's a whole different that might be a whole other podcast like, boss, Ben, do you hear dude saying yeah, my boss, dude, no boss, a boss, dude. I don't know, that just seems it seems kind of weird, show up and be a good person. How's that? So that brings me to my next one is like, make sure that your integrity and your character and your your boundaries and your you know, just what you stand for is a parent, it should be apparent to your team first, because they're going to show it to the clients. Okay, it is a trickle down hill. If you show up without without integrity, your team is going to take a lead from that. And what I mean by that is, if something gets over, let's just say something gets overcharged to your client, okay? And it's a pretty, pretty big Whopper. And then it turns out that it was your fault. And you don't, you know, give the money back to the client or acknowledge that there was an error or anything along that line, and I'm just making this stuff up as we go, then then your team is going to see that you're not living above the line, okay? That you are, you are not showing up as the leader of the company that has integrity, that serves people. And if that's who you are, then they're going to take that cue and potentially go and potentially intentionally make, that's kind of hard to say, intent, they may go and act out of character, or act out of integrity with your clients and start to ruin your reputation. So you have to be the one who says, okay, hey, listen, at the end of the day, do the right thing. So we have some core values in our company. The first one is do the right thing. Okay, and that is where you can take a look, and you can train your team, whenever they have to make a decision, what is the right thing to do? It might not be the easy thing to do, it might not be the most profitable thing to do. But what is the right thing to do? Okay. And then on the other hand, learn how to, you know, make sure you know how to say no, as a leader, you can get wrapped up in like 999,000 things. You know, ADHD is a real thing for entrepreneurs, you have to be able to say no, not just to your team, when they ask for, you know, six weeks off in the middle of the summer. Okay, whatever, we have to learn how to say no. But you also have to learn how to say no to all of the shiny objects that show up in running your business. Even if it's a great idea that your team brings to you at the time, you might have to stop and say no, that's not a good idea to do right. Now. Let's table that until next year, okay, saying no. And also, you cannot be all things to all people, when you are leading your team. At the end of the day, you cannot run your business to make them happy. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say you cannot run your business to try to make them happy. Sometimes you're going to have to step up and say, I know it's a difficult pill to swallow, but we're gonna have to be in the office five days a week, I know we've been enjoying working from home, this is what we need to do to get our business back on track. Okay, there's just times where you have to make the decision as a manager of as the adult, let me rephrase that you have to be the CEO of your business, you have to make hard decisions. And you have to be able to share that with your team. In a way that is hard, because you want to see them happy and thriving. But at the end of the day, everybody's here to make sure the business is thriving, and then we can be happy and thriving in our personal lives. Hopefully, anyway, you know, I hope you get the point. So I think that one more thing is that your team, they all need different types of leadership, or acknowledgement to to motivate them, okay, so they, that's it they need, they all need different types of motivation, different types of communication, okay. Some might be motivated by money. Some might be motivated by praise. Some might be motivated by time off, some might be motivated by just whatever the case may be. Everybody's a little bit different. Okay. It's your job to find out what works best. And you don't have to like play a role and say, Oh, you did such a great job. Lalalalala. But now everybody likes everybody. More than likely has all of what I just said. And there's, there's more, I just, there's more. But find out what their love languages and talk that to them. Okay, I surprisingly found out that my team is not the most money motivated. I came out of sales when I was at the recruiting firm. And at the restaurant, my, you know, servers were all motivated by money. So when they were Debbie and Megan were more along the lines of they weren't real competitive in regards to, you know, driving business earlier. And when I was trying to put things together as programs to incentivize them, it's more along the lines of, you know, acknowledgement, letting them letting them have the stage, when they're leading the production, that's been a game changer for us, acknowledge them, even though my name is on the door. Don't hog the spotlight, don't take credit, don't take all the credit for what your team does. I mean, that's just rude. So treat people the way you want to be treated. My like, my mom always said, it's the Golden Rule, do unto others as you'd want others do unto you. I wouldn't want to be stepped on and crushed and have my work publicized as, as somebody else's, give them credit. So I think that those are some really key tenants to leveling up your leadership. And of course, you can always go to the flip side, and you know, don't don't be, don't be a bitch. Okay? Don't be abusive. Don't be disrespectful, you need to make sure and I feel very strongly about this. So when I say you need, I do believe you need to make your business a safe place to fail. And what I mean by that is, nobody's freaking perfect. Don't rip them a new. Don't just don't rip into them. If they goof something up, they have to be okay, coming to you and saying, Oh, I screwed this up. And then your response shouldn't be well, you dumbass. Your response should be okay, well, what do we need to do to fix this? Okay, you know, maybe you think, okay, you don't matter. So you no matter what were you thinking, okay, that's fine. But don't say it out loud. Don't say it out loud. It needs to be a safe place for them to fail, because you don't want them hiding it from you. Okay, you don't want them hiding it from you. Maybe something got measured incorrectly, maybe an assumption was made that we shouldn't make but the contractor should have been responsible for but we assumed that we were responsible for whatever, it's gonna cost you money. Okay. But if you think about it, more often than not, your team is gonna make more money for you, then they're gonna lose in one mistake. Okay, the difference is, is if it's the same mistake over and over, if it's just a mistake here, it's a mistake. There it happens. You're not perfect. Allow them not to be either. So I think that's, I think that's my TED talk today.
Michelle Lynne 27:52
Welcome to my TED Talk. Thank you for listening. If you are listening on Apple or Stitcher or Amazon, or where else are we Apple, Stitcher, Amazon, Spotify, I would really, really, really appreciate a review. Only if it's good. It's not a good review, just just email me directly. And let's talk. Okay. So thank you for joining me today about leveling up your leadership. And if you are an individual who runs a team of people, I would also love to hear if you have additional insight, or ideas that we can all share in leading our team doesn't leave anything out. Have you found something else that works for you? Let me know. In the meantime, I'll see you on the next episode. 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 a name and get even more business advice than join me in my Facebook group. The interior designers business launch pack. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feet. It's fine. 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.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
