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.
Hello, and welcome back to the podcast, I am looking forward to speaking to you today about how to create a return on investment from your team. Whether this is going to be somebody that you outsource and work with on a regular basis, or if you're bringing somebody on board internally in a direct hire capacity, or even a contract capacity. So I have been in management literally since I graduated college, and that was probably back in 1902. So I'm dating myself, I started my career as a restaurant manager. And you'll have to imagine this like I'm 23, I think 22 years old. And I am managing a was a steak house. It was a very popular steak house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and actually is a prime rib house was prime rib. Long story short, the, let's say the customer had a problem, maybe the prime rib was overcooked. And so they would ask their server, hey, I need to speak to the manager. And on more than one occasion, I would show up to the table and say, Hey, my name is Michelle, I understand you have some questions or some concerns about your primary job or whatever. And they would say I don't want to talk to the hostess, I want to talk to the manager. Oh, if I would have had the guts back in the day, I would have just spun around and said Haha, I am the manager. But of course I was like 12 years old and looked like it. So I've went from restaurant management. I did that for I worked for the prime rib house. And then I worked for a fish house both with the same owner. And then I was recruited by Brinker International and I worked at Romanos Macaroni Grill in Albuquerque for a short period of time. And then went out to Las Vegas to train the general managers and the executive chefs to open up the market in California, and went out there and opened up a couple of restaurants and then finally got my own as general manager, I think I was 27 ran a multimillion dollar restaurant for a few years, jumped out of restaurants because you know, weekends, nights and holidays and I wanted to get married. But the reason I'm telling you this is because my management experience is extensive. So I'm just giving some credibility behind I list. But before I list out how to get return on investment from your team. So after the restaurant business, I went into recruiting, I used to place accounting and financial professionals on a contract or project basis. When I was out in Albuquerque know where it was I was out in California, I worked for Robert Half International. And then I moved to Dallas and worked for a small boutique firm here. But then as we grew, I became area director and was busy managing a multimillion dollar business unit there. So I've had anywhere from I think at Macaroni Grill, we probably had a anywhere between 60 and 120 employees, I can't remember because it was that long ago. And then in my recruiting firm, I had a direct report of about I think our largest I had 10 direct reports. And then they all had individuals that reported to them essentially. So we were overseeing a good 120 250 people there. So I probably have more experience managing than I have designing. So it's a lot of hard learned lessons that I want to share with you. So if you're driving or if you're sitting around, or if you're just listening, I wouldn't hesitate to suggest that you have a pencil and paper out because I'm going to give you some very actionable items. And here's the deal. Even if you don't have a team now, you can start putting things into place and I'll tell you which of these points you can put into place. But it's also going to be useful in the future because you should always begin with the end in mind like what do you want your business to look like? Do you want to be the sole proprietor proprietor and the sole person of responsibility for the for the duration of your of your business? There's gonna be a lot of things that you can outsource that this is still applicable to so without further ado, I'm going to talk about the very first thing what once you hire somebody okay going through the hiring process as a whole different podcasts, but let's say you've identified your employee, or contractor or VA, or outsourcing service or whatever. So I'm gonna say employee a lot. But just know that you can interchange those with a 1099 contractor with a outsourced procurement professional or with a VA who helps you with your technology or whatever the case may be. So they're all interchangeable, I'm going to use the term employee through the course of this brief podcast and giving you that disclaimer. So once you've identified the employee you want to bring on the hardest part of hiring a new employee is to learn how to delegate, and then sit down and spend the time training them. It is a huge time suck. And it is very, very hard to onboard an employee and spend time with them while you're still trying to run your business. So I always suggest that you should hire at or just before that critical point. And you know what that means? It's just like, holy crap, I can't do all of this by myself, I need to hire somebody. Well, before you get to that holy crap phase, you should be at the like, Crap phase. Okay, I don't think that that's a technical term, but it's it's an internal feeling that you'll know. So you want to learn how to delegate. How do you do that? Well, what you can do is you can start by writing a job description of everything that you need to offload from your own plate, and then have a list of the trainings that you need to create, to go through with this new employee so that they can do the work that you need them to complete. One of the hardest things about delegating outsourcing, whatever, is that they're not going to do it the same way you do. And you have to get over the fact that you still might be a little bit better than they are. But if the best employees will be the ones that you let fly, and they will become better than you. And that is okay, I actually encourage it, just get rid of any ego. So if you're hiring another designer, like I hire Debbie, and Megan, because my business was outgrowing the skill set that I wanted to have, I didn't want to be in the trenches, holding the hands of clients who can't make up their mind, or going through and just handling all of the details of a frickin custom pillow. So hiring Debbie and Megan was the smartest thing that I ever did, because they came in and I taught them how we do things here, they're better designers than I ever would be if I had, even if I had stuck in there. So letting go of that ego has given me a lot of freedom to do these other passion projects, like a podcast, like the interior designers, business bakery, like all of these other things that I love to do. So teaching and training is imperative. That's, that's one of the first steps to getting a return on investment from your team. Now, once you've got them taught, once, once you've taught them what they need to be doing, and they are out of a hand holding phase, and actually implementing what you've asked them to do, this is where you start to coach them, review with them deliver feedback, it is not something that you need to be critical. But you do need to make sure you address it. And you have to be straightforward. Clear in your expectations, clear in your directives to the to read, redirect them if you need to. But also you just have to be real. And you know, ask them, How are you understanding it? Do you need additional assistance? Did I explain it? Well, to begin with? I would recommend as they're going like what will what we would do when I used to hire people for ml interiors group, but thankfully, we're just where we're at, and we're gonna stay there is we would meet once a week, like every Friday, let's just spend 15 or 20 minutes talking about what you've got going on. But actually did I just hired a director of operations. So this is what we did. So so quickly forget when you just have great people around you. It feels like they've been there for a while. So we would meet once a week. Hey, what did you get done? What do you need help with? What questions do you have I looked at this, let me just tell you that we need to put maybe a little bit more fluff into these emails that we're responding to look, I'm going to do it a couple times. And then you can kind of get a feel for where I'm going and then I'm handing it back over to you. You have to deliver feedback because these new employees cannot read your mind. If you don't give them feedback, what you're telling them is you're doing great. And if they're not doing great, or they are doing great, but they could do that, you know that the you know, there's just a few tweaks that will elevate that performance. You need to share that with them. Nobody can read minds. So then it's just that's just easy, you know, and then the next thing would be is to create structured follow up reviews and check ins. So this is going to be where maybe you start meeting instead of every week because they're just kind of input formal and quick coaching and reviewing with feedback every month for the first three months, you can or maybe every month for the first 12 months depending on what you've hired them for. This is where you need to make sure that you go a little bit deeper, and everything should be written down. So I don't like to call it a review, I like to call it well, I call it a review and planning meeting. So it's like, Okay, here's where we've been. And here's where we're going. Okay, so it doesn't feel like the, you know, getting called into the principal's office for review. So, well, you can create a form so that it's standardized. And you can have them fill the form out in advance, and then give it to you like 24 hours to 48 hours in advance. And they're also helping direct their own training. Like, what do you think you did? Well, what do you you know, what have you seen that you want to learn that is applicable in this role or anything along that line? So that it's not just you being the boss and setting the path? It's going to be okay, oh, so you want to learn a little bit of social media? Or oh, you want to learn procurement? Or whatever, then you can you can guide the conversation. And you can say, Well, no, you're, when I hired you, I told you, you were never going to be an assistant designer, you were just going to be the business assistant or something along that line, you can just make sure that you're potentially seeing any red flags that might be, you know, pink flags now, but could become red flags later. So doing it month by month is great. You know, what I do with Debbie and Megan right now, because we've been together for so long, is we just go to lunch every other month, I don't even have to do formal reviews that are written down anymore. We just have great conversations. And I've got to tell you guys, if you give your employees the room to grow, they will blossom and bring you with them. Don't try to shoulder everything on your own shoulders, even though your name is on the door. As you develop specific roles, and you're hiring people for specific roles. Providing a structured roadmap is really helpful. So that again, your employee is not thinking that they have to read your mind. So you need to show your employees the exact expectations. And here's how you will grow within the company so that they always can be looking forward and they're pushing themselves to hit those next milestones.
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 [email protected], as well as in the show notes. What else is there, so when when you are working, depending on who you have on your team, if you're hiring somebody to just let's talk about sales to do some sales, or to do an actual it, maybe it's an assistant designer, you have to be able to track and measure the results. So let's say if you're hiring an assistant designer to help you with things, you should be able to say, Okay, you have X number of hours to get this task, or this, do these details done. And then if they are not getting to that point of accomplishment, then you can give them feedback as to Okay, so where did you struggle instead of four hours, it took you six hours, where did you struggle what was going on and you're again having these conversations, but you're still measuring the results and you're giving them the goal to shoot for. And at the same time, you have to make sure that their work isn't shoddy because they're trying to hit a particular time goal, but at the same time working efficiently and effectively. One thing that I've had to teach my team is that perfection is perception. And you might get into a design and you're just looking for that absolute positive, perfect fabric for that last pillow. Okay. And you could spend eight hours looking for that damn fabric, but isn't going to elevate your project by that much. So you have to be able to learn how to how to balance that return on investment and be able to back I can see your design fee and say we have X number of time to do it. So giving the employee guidance and directions on how to improve so that you can hit this particular measure. All of this goes hand in hand with, with what I've also suggested having the regular reviews and feedbacks, and having structured follow up and check ins and things like that. This is not like 18 different steps, a lot of these will go together. But you need to make sure that you are hitting all of these topics. What I really, really, really am passionate about is that you have to create processes that are easy to repeat and are written down so that your employee can follow them. If you don't have things written down, because it's just been you for the longest time, start writing them down now start writing them down. Now, I don't care if you're not hiring, right this shit down y'all for a variety of reasons. One is when you do bring that employee on, they have a literal roadmap on what to follow what to do and how to do it. You might even create scripts so that they use the verbiage that you want them to use to represent your brand. It is imperative that you have these notes written down. This is what I this is a lot of what I teach in the interior design business bakery is these repeatable processes, we have what we call the ML and the ML experience. It's 16 steps that encompass the four phases of interior design, research, development, procurement, and installation, I share it with our clients. And here, this is exactly what we do. This is the journey you're about to go on strap in, let's have some fun. So it's the same thing with your employees. Because the trainings are going to give them the tools that they need in order to expedite their learning. So you're gonna have to train them. But if you've recorded anything, or written anything down, you can be organized on the front end. And you can even tell them, hey, listen, I'm still developing this, but here's this, this, this and this, based on what I'm training you to do this week, okay. And remember, it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be branded real pretty to begin with, just get it done, slap your, you know, first four steps onto a Word document. And then you could even tell them, I'm going to train you, I need you to update this document with what you learned. And then I'm going to double check that you learn to properly teach you if I've, if you forgot anything, or if we need to add anything. Or if I forgot something, when I was training you we need to write it down here. Because how many times do you do the same task over and over and over and over and over again, that you do it on autopilot. So then you are training somebody to do it. And you might leave a step or two out because you're training not doing? So writing these things down is is huge. And then that's how you scale your business if you want to scale it at all. You know, I joke that Debbie Megan and I, we have everything exact done the same way every single time because the process let's see, how do I say this The while the every project is different, the process remains the same. So with that being said, you should have everything documented so that if you win a lottery ticket and you go lay on the beach in Fiji, that your assistant can go in and pick up where you left off, because it's the same way every single time. So then as you can see how this is a progressive journey, you need to give the new employee grace with time to learn. Everybody learns a little bit differently. You can show tell do and review is an easy way to remember how to train somebody, show them how to do it, tell them how to do it, do it with them, and then review. But everybody learns a little bit differently. And I I firmly believe that anytime you come into a new role, if it's if it's a full time position that you're hiring for, and it's not like you are hiring an outsourced specialized agency to do procurement. And all they do is procurement or social media. And all they do is social media. But if you're hiring an employee who's going to come in and work beside you, it's going to take a good year for them to ramp up and be very efficient and effective and contributing. So setting those expectations is is imperative so that if they actually are up and running within nine months and just like blowing through everything that you give them, then that's a bonus. But don't be disappointed if there's still some things that are lacking, you know, to the extent of a year. Let me interrupt myself to take a quick moment to thank satinath 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 inch rinse 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. Now on the other hand, if you know it's not going to be a good fit, I got some advice from Barbara Corcoran one day. And basically what she said is shoot the dog early. And that hurts my heart because I have two little dogs and I love animals. And I can even watch movies where the animal gets hurt, but it stuck out in my mind. Because if you see that you're going down 30 days, 45 days, 60 days, and this just isn't going to work, you need to peel that band aid off, and you need to let that person go. Okay? Now while you're doing that, you need to be all up in their grill on a weekly basis, making sure that if they do get let go, that it's not a surprise to them. Now, I will tell you having all of that experience that I expressed to you early in the show, letting somebody go or firing somebody is never easy, and it never got easier. It still broke my heart to let somebody go. But if they were surprised that they were let go, then that was on me. Because if I had to fire them, it's my responsibility. It's your responsibility as the business owner as the employer, to make sure that they understand that they are not meeting your expectations. And it could be, you know, for whatever reason, I mean, that's why it hurts to let somebody go because there might be some outside influences that have kept them from performing. But that's not your monkey. So letting somebody go, you need to make sure that you are having these difficult conversations that you're documenting these difficult conversations. And you might even get a signature from the employee just saying I understand that this is, you know, my firt my first warning, my third warning will be termination or anything along that line. So sometimes you just know, 45 days in Oh shit, this is not the person for me, well, then,
don't let it go on for 90 days, 120 days, six months, nine months thinking they're gonna get better. Because that's just an exercise in futility. The sooner you can remove that individual from your presence, the sooner you can replace them with somebody else. And it is sometimes necessary to go through two or three people until you get that right person. Nobody said that having an employee was easy, but it's damn good when you find them. Speaking of which, when you find that damn good employee, you need to make sure that you recognize and reward them, celebrate their success, make sure you stop and acknowledge their contributions, make sure that you appreciate them, people are going to leave a business less likely for money than it is for not feeling appreciated, or getting acknowledged. So finding out what your employee needs, Debbie and Megan are both different in what they need to fill their tank. I when I had, you know, 100 employees. Granted, I had managers that worked underneath me that led them directly, but I had to take care of my managers and I still interacted with the staff per se. But you have to find their love language when it comes to business and recognition. Yes, some people do like money like we all like money, right? That we're not, we're not doing this business for charity. But some people love some recognition. Like, on Instagram, this project is led by Deb does design or Megan Fornes. And just having that shout out because it's my name on the door has been just an easy and free way to continue to keep my team happy. Mental Health days, I think those are huge. You know, we're going to this, I don't know when this is going to drop, but we're going to be going to the spa as a team. Because you know, that COVID wave coming out of it. It's just been so busy. And we've all been just like running 100 miles an hour on a regular basis. So why not stop and celebrate as a team and take them take them out. You could be giving them a bottle of wine that could be giving them you know, a gift card up to take their spouse out to dinner or whatever the case may be. It's just giving them that recognition that they need. So once they're up and running, and you're like this is a great employee, I love seeing them. I love the work that they do. They're really making my life easier. Because as the CEO, you need to have a vision for your company and hire strategically. And then what you do is you you continue to challenge them and raise the bar so It's going to be that ongoing growth, because if you're not growing, you're dying. So that goes for your business. If it's not growing, it's dying. And it doesn't have to necessarily grow in the number of employees, or even the number, the number, the revenue number, but you're growing in the quality of the caliber of your designs, well, technically, if your designs are getting better, your revenue should be getting better. So, but continuing to raise the bar just for yourself, for your employees, everybody looks to grow. And it keeps them feeling empowered, if you invest in them to maybe go take a class or to bring them to market with you or, or just ways that they can develop and become a better employee is just the benefits everybody, it benefits everybody. And yeah, sometimes you have to spend money. But here's the deal, when you have these golden employees, they are the ones that will pay for themselves with the work that they do. And that's something to look at. And I'll leave you with that. And something to look at is when you hire somebody, how are they going to pay for themselves? What work are they going to do to pay for themselves, if they can't turn around and basically cover their own costs with whatever work they're doing, it could be that they're freeing up enough time for you to get out and be the face of the business, you don't need to be doing administrative work, then they're basically paying for themselves, because they bought you some time, your designers, they should be working enough that they are that you know your numbers and you know your overhead and you know what they're costing you by hour. And you can factor that into your design fee and ensure that they're not taking too long on their designs, they should still be tracking their time, even though you're not billing by the hour. So that's what I'll leave you in regards to steps that you can take for a return on investment from your team. And again, whether it's an internal employee, or if it's a VA, or if it is a procurement specialist, or a social media, or whatever it is still taking a look from that aspect is imperative. And yes, I do I send my virtual assistants gifts, and thank you cards and so forth. And it goes a long, long way for that loyalty, for the little extra work that they'll do for me, and just overall being a good person. So I will leave you with that. I hope that's helpful for you, whether you have a team of you, or whether you are looking to bring anybody on board, out sourced in source 1099, direct hire, and so forth. So thanks for joining me today. And please do not hesitate to drop in on social media at any point and request any specific topic for the podcast. And don't forget to leave a review. I really would appreciate that, y'all. So thanks for being here. And I will catch you next time. 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. Then join me in my Facebook group, the interior designers business launch pad. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feet. 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.
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