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.
Hey, y'all, I hope you're having a great day. Thanks so much for coming back to the podcast. I'm really having a lot of fun, meeting new people having conversations and even just sitting, you're talking to myself. So I hope you are too. And just in advance, if you do find that you're enjoying this podcast, leaving a review, anywhere you listen to it is very much appreciated. So without further ado, I want to talk today about why being yourself is the best for your business. And what really brought this and laid it on my heart. Was that recently, I don't know, within the last few weeks of when this is being recorded in May, there was an image of one of the Kardashian sisters, and I don't even keep up with them. I just know who they are. But there was an image of a Kardashian sister that was taken outside of a pose. It was not. It was not supposed to be released to the public, it was accidentally released by an assistant or something like that, whatever. So there's this chick of a bikini? No, no, there's a picture of one of the sisters in a bikini. But it's not posed. It doesn't have the perfect lighting. It's just her looking happy looking fit. It's just not perfect. And I just thought, why is there such a big hoopla about this because the family went and got their attorneys, their legal team to go and find the image on any platform and demand that it be taken down. And that just made me so sad. It made me so sad to think that well, one, what is the say to our younger generation? What is this say that a candid photo of a girl who looks happy and is beautiful in her own right? And beauty can be defined however you want to any size, shape, color, etc. But I saw the pictures. She looked cute. She looked like she was having fun. Did she look perfect and all touched up like a Kardashian? No, she was real. So it makes me stop to think, what message does this send to our children? My husband and I were just talking recently about how difficult it is for girls to grow up in general. I mean, back in my day, it was a Barbie that was the bad, the bad image center. And now we've got everybody who is so perfectly posed well lit, and so forth in just the physical sense. It's overwhelming. But it also gives you the message that imperfection is unacceptable. And I would really like to turn that around and say that perfection is perception. Because that image of Kardashian, whoever it was, could it could be considered perfection, because it was a perfect moment. Perfect laughter perfect happiness, perfect vacation perfect, whatever. Who cares that the lighting wasn't perfect. So what does this have to do with business? Well, perfection is perception. And where I am going with this example of the Kardashian image. And if you haven't seen or heard about it, I'm sure you can Google it. I just don't know which sister it would be but it was removed from the internet but it still pops up here and there. But this is the same in business because your that Your vibe attracts your tribe. And by being yourself by being be you tiful and if this was in print the it would be B and then why oh, you would be in all caps and then it would be tiful be beautiful. Be you an example of this for myself, is that when I first got into interior design, I came from a corporate world I didn't know anything about interior design very ignorant. went and did not grow up in a world of luxury. So I was actually pretty insecure in a lot of manners. So I tried to put on, quote unquote, airs of being designer, he, like, you had to be a certain way, you had to show up a certain way, you had to look a certain way when you went to events and did things or whatever. And it just wasn't true to my nature. And I didn't recognize it just because I thought that that's what was supposed to be that that's maybe what I was scrolling through and seeing back in the day I was on Instagram was really a thing. But you'd see the magazines and you'd see, you know, Jan showers with her fabulous books and going out to parties and things like that. So I was just basing it off of ideas. Same thing now, though, you see Instagram and you see the designers that you follow. And just remember that all of us, most of us, put up our highlight reels. Like look at how beautiful this room is. Look at how perfectly poised this vignette is look at the lighting look at me with my makeup done for professionally. I mean, lord knows I don't look that good all the time. So in the business, it's not just the imagery that is important for you to keep realistic. Yes, we all love a good beautiful feed. I'm not saying to put crappy photos up on your on your feed. Although I think is it Amber's interiors. One of her hashtags is crappy iPhone photos is my jam. And she made a thing out of it just because she was just being real. Like, here we are, this is what's going on today. But in regards to being yourself, this also translates because you have to be your own brand. Whether your business name has your personal name in it, or whether it's completely separate. And it is just a a non personalized brand name. You still are your brand. 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 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 designed beautiful spaces. You can find their contact information below in the show notes. Give them a call today. When I first went into business, I our tagline was glamorously functional interiors for busy professionals. Why? Well, because I had a little bit of glam in me at the time. I still probably err a little bit on that side. But I was also coming out of corporate and so I knew how to speak to busy professionals. And so that went on for a little while. But here's what happened. I started figuring out that if I was going to be doing glamorously functional interiors that I had to show up as glamorously functional, and that meant like probably wearing a dress and some heels or something. And that eventually just started very, it started feeling very inauthentic. Because if you know me, or if you've seen me on social media, or through any of my events, or in the interior designers, business Launchpad on Facebook or anything like that, you see that I'm not always fully made up. I don't always have my eyelashes on. I don't always have a full face a makeup on my hair is not always done sometimes in a ponytail. But when I show up to my clients, I'm pulled together but I'm much more comfortable in a cute pair of shoes, some jeans, a cute blazer, a cute blouse, like not necessarily in heels and a dress. Now hills in a dress has its appropriate place. But that is just not who I am. Sometimes my nails are done. Sometimes my nails are not done. If you're glamorously functional, you need to be polished at all times. And so once I'd really, I don't want to say grew up, but once I really gave myself permission and I had gone through a variety of different
Oh, like I love for those of you who know I love Tony Robbins like so I went to a bunch of his events I was studying, like Gabby Bernstein and Joe Dispenza, and so forth and just different things and learning more about myself that I realized that glamorously functional interiors for the busy professional as a bit business that is my business was not congruent with my identity. So what was happening? We were attracting the wrong clients, we were attracting clients that did not align with my values. But I was talking to them as to who I thought I was supposed to be versus who I was. So that comes back to why being yourself is the best for business. We sat back, kind of reevaluate it. And I say we because at this point, my team was with me, and took a look at who are we now me as the leader? Yes, Debbie and Megan are an integral part of my brand and my business. Love those girls. But we came up with instead of glamorously functional interiors for the busy professional, what do we do we make homes Happy, happy and more efficient, we make them happier and more efficient, happier and more efficient. So think about what we do as a business, we do make homes happier, because who doesn't love walking into a room that just suits the soul, and feels like a big old cozy hug. We also make them more efficient, because you're not coming around the corner and bang in your leg into the wrong size entry console. And on that entry console, you have a place for your keys and your mails and place to drop your purse and all of that sort of stuff, if that's where you're coming through. So we changed our we changed our tagline. And then we also added smart, stylish and fun as our key words. Because not only are our designs, but our brains are smart, stylish, our designs, and then we're stylish, but we're not in a dress in heels, and fun. Like we have fun with our clients. And our projects are fun, and our designs are fun. So once we could identify those values, and we could translate them into part of our branding, and there's a there's a good work, there's a good lesson that I offer in the interior design business bakery that really dives into a lot of this, but I'm giving you enough to be really dangerous right now. Just if anything, just the permission to be yourself. And if you if you know me if you know my team, we are fine. Like we are real, and quirky and silly and serious and smart like dope. Like, we take our business very seriously. But we don't take ourselves very seriously 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 is 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. So stop and take a look at who you are, as an individual as a person. You could elevate it a little bit I always think you want to strive to Who do I want to be like, Who do I Who do I have to be in order to accomplish what I want to accomplish and do what I want to do and have what I want to have. So you have to be that person first. So we had to step back from being glamorously functional, and be ourselves that was smart, stylish and fun, and making homes happier and more efficient. The clients that we have attracted once we have owned that nuance have been so beautiful and amazing to work with. Because again, Your vibe attracts your tribe. So if we have individuals who take their design seriously, but they don't take themselves seriously. We meet exactly where we're supposed to meet. We're designing beautiful spaces for them. And it's a luxury service, but we're having fun doing it. They recognize it if you know something goes awry. We don't have anybody whose knickers get in a twist with all of these delays that are occurring right now during COVID and so forth. Because they're like, You know what, yeah, I would love to have it. But I don't and I'm not gonna get mad at you, because it's out of your hands. Previously, some of the clients that we had were a little bit more uptight. So So stop and take a look at who you are at your core, not who you think you should be. Not in comparison to some babe, or bro on Instagram. Ask your friends, ask your family does my brand does my messaging align with who you know me to be? Because now I could go back and I could ask my husband, hey, what do you think about glamorously functional interiors for the busy professional and he'd say, look around, you're barefoot half the time. And I'd love to be barefoot with my clients half the time too. But for the most part, if you are, you know, there's some beautiful designers around who are always pulled together, who are always like, their makeup is perfect, their outfits are perfect. And I know these lovely ladies, personally, they embody that vibe. We don't. What do you embody? Do you embody? You know, moms of multiples, do you embody, you know, moms of wilds, I could probably turn around and change some of my branding. Now that I've got my headstrong little three year old. But what is it that makes you unique? If you've raised multiple children, that is something that makes you very unique. It's an interesting way to live when you have children. Are you? Are you silly? Are you an introvert? Are you an extrovert? Are you green living? There's all sorts of different things that what do you believe in? What do you value, you know, our core values, my first core value that I share with my clients is put God first the rest will take itself take care of itself. The second one is do the right thing. Lots of people say don't put your your your beliefs into your business. But because I embody my beliefs, and I embody my business, it's all one in the same. Last, I tell him, I love Jesus, and I swear a little bit. But here's the deal is that if they don't like that, then they're not for me. So find out who you are and what you stand for. And let that be part of your brand. It's not something I'm suggesting that you go, and you talk about, you know, religion, and politics, and financials and all of that sort of stuff. And every meeting that you have with your client, if they know what you stand for, you will be able to discuss with them the needs that they have in terms that they will understand. So I think I've hammered the point in long enough, be yourself is the best for business, Your vibe attracts your tribe. So I'll make sure that any details of how you can connect with me are down in the show notes. And for those of you who can benefit from even more resources surrounding the business of running your interior design business, don't forget, I've got the growing community on Facebook private group. It's called the interior designers business Launchpad. It's fabulous if I do say so myself, and I happen there once a week for some free training. So thanks for joining me. Thanks for listening in. And I will see you again soon. 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 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.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
