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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 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 Lynn.
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Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to a bonus episode of the design for the creative mind podcast. I am actually down in my home office recording this. So I'm hopeful that these headphones that I have are of decent quality and it doesn't sound too bad. Although I suppose it couldn't be any worse than the other day when I recorded a podcast at my makeup mirror. Just random thoughts. But I woke up this morning at I don't know, like 330 No, I think it was closer to 230. I woke up at 230 this morning. And I was like Why have I not mentioned my interior design business success summit on my podcast, duh. So I kind of fell back asleep for a little bit, just you know, one of those restless sleeps where you just have too many things in your head. And I didn't get up and write it down just because I knew that I would remember usually I write things down in the middle of the night or as I'm putting on my makeup or whatever. So I don't forget it. But I knew that that I would not forget this one. But I still couldn't get a really good solid night of sleep. So if I sound like an 80 year old chain smoker, this is what I sound like in the morning. I've only had a couple sips of coffee, I've let the dogs out. And here I am. And thank the Lord, there is no video on podcast. The reason why I wanted to record this is because y'all we have a really, really great event coming up. And I want to make sure that you've heard about it. So if you're interested in hearing about the interior design business success summit, that's what this episode is going to be about today. If you're not interested, if you're like oh, hell to the no, I'm not interested in going to a really cool conference to meet other individuals who are like minded. And I don't know, maybe meet some new friends that understand me in the interior design industry, or maybe meet some new vendors who I could work with and make some money. Or if you don't feel like learning anything about your interior design business, from the lineup of speakers that we have. So if you don't want to hear about those speakers, or about the agenda, or about what we have confirmed, then I would probably just hit stop on this episode and go to the next one. But if you're gonna hang around, let me tell you a little bit about it. And yes, you're gonna hear me slurping coffee in the meantime. Like right there. My production crew was fantastic. But you know, sometimes you just gotta keep it real. So let me tell you about the fourth annual interior design business success summit. And yes, we did start this in the in the middle. No, it was well, yeah, I guess it wasn't the middle of the pandemic, a little history. We I was doing my rollout of the interior design business bakery. And it wasn't really the rollout. It was more like the beta testing. I had a small group of some brilliant designers who I have just come to love and adore. We're still in each other's lives. And I mentioned, wouldn't it be fun if we could get together and do like a little mini conference or something? And I put that out there once or twice on our calls. This was back in 2020. Yeah, early 2020. I think we're just in the middle of lockdown. And it just kind of took on a life of its own. And I was just kind of going to, you know, skim over it. It was, you know, blame the pandemic. We can't do it, blah, blah, blah. And Sarah keeps bringing it up, bringing it up, bring it up. So I ended up doing it. And ironically, she was not able to make it on the dates that I chose. Anyway, it has just grown from there. So I think that first group, we probably had 13 or 14 people who, you know, hopped on a plane and came to a conference. Did we wear masks? I think we had masks and a lot of hand sanitizer. But anyway, you don't need to hear about that. But it's been great and it's been growing since then. So this is our fourth annual interior design business success summit. It is going to be held in Dallas. We're going to be at Dallas Market Center, which is its market basically all if market and it's open like 50 weeks of the year. So we've got some really great vendors. It's actually during design days of Dallas market design center. And so we're gonna have the best of all worlds. This year Summit is going to be a little bit restructured. So if you've been here in the past, we're restructuring it. In order for more designers to participate. I'm hopeful that we can we can have more community that grows. We have a three day event. It starts on Tuesday, April 2. If you are a baker, if you have joined the interior design business bakery, past or present, we have a VIP day for you on Tuesday, April 2, it begins at nine o'clock in the morning. If you have not joined the interior design business bakery, then on Tuesday, April 2, registration begins at two o'clock. And it ends Friday, April 5 at 12 Noon. Ish, it might be a little bit later. So if you're if you're planning a tickets just based on this podcast, that might be a little bit later. So planet for late afternoon. So again, like I said, day one is a special VIP day for Baker's only. And we're actually hosting it at Studio works, which is my co working space in Addison that we created and built around MLW interiors group. Day two, three, and half of the fourth day will be at Dallas Market Center, as I'd mentioned before, and here's the Working Agenda. Let me tell you what we have. We have. Let's see. So VIP day, I'm scrolling through my my notes. First we're going to kick off with coffee and a light Texas style breakfast. Our first speaker on Tuesday. Okay, so this is the VIP day. Our speaker is Hallie Agostinelli. And she's talking about PR and crafting sweeter success for predictable profit. If you know how you love Halle, she is our community manager for the interior designers business Launchpad and all things bakery related or other
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What do you call it? Art we have a membership with called Sugar and Spice society. If you're interested in that DM me, I don't have that information in front of me. Nor is that the topic of today. So let me just continue talking about the summit. We've got a virtual Lunch and Learn that day. Shamin Taylor Smith, she is a rock star in the interior design industry. And she is talking about stirring the pot and how to rework the tired PR recipe. So Holly is going to be talking about PRs crafting sweeter success. And then Shamin is going to come in with you know, new and different ideas that are tried and true as well. And then I get to speak and I just found this out so I'm gonna have to put together my conversation but we're gonna be talking about confectionery couture, achieving post bakery excellence. And then we've got some roundtables going on with Hallie and I, and then we're gonna head down to the World Trade Center for check in. And then we have some time at Dallas design days, and happy hour at Faizi rugs, which is on the main level and the World Trade Center. So I'm super excited about that. And this happy hour is only for our summit attendees. So it's going to be a private event. So if you are a baker listening, make sure you pencil in nine o'clock in the morning on Tuesday. Don't fly in for the two o'clock registration come in the night before. Okay, time for another sip of coffee. Let me move the microphone from my mouth. Yes, we're keeping this real Oh, and a friend of mine. Joanna Dicker with Avenue eight interiors introduced me to this amazing protein shakes. Its premier protein and it's Gosh, I don't want to tell you it because it's a limited edition. And I'm kind of afraid that you're gonna go buy up all the stock but who am I kidding? Because I don't have that big of an audience. Right. So I'll share it with you. It is premier protein. It is pumpkin spice. Okay, yeah, I know. This is what February and we still have pumpkin spice. They're calling it a limited edition. Maybe it's just so damn good that they're gonna have it all year round. And I'm not a Pumpkin Spice Girl. I am a pumpkin pie girl but not a pumpkin spice coffee person but this is really good. So I put this in my coffee and first it's a creamer and it's a little bit of protein shake with my coffee and then eventually it becomes a little bit of coffee with my protein shake as the ratios evened out, but that is my beverage of choice this morning. Okay, so and I know I say so a lot. I'm working on that. If you are arriving Tuesday, then you will get to your hotel which by the way, we have a special block of rooms reserved at the Virgin, the virgin in Dallas. The prices for the rooms go up we just got an extension, they go up on March 15, you would arrive on Tuesday morning, check into the hotel and then head over to Dallas Market Center, which is just a hop, skip and a jump away from the Virgin. check in at two o'clock. When you register, we'll get you out for the summit. We'll get you all of the information, where to go to check in, do all the things and then you can wander around design days. And it is it's just wander there's there's nothing intimidate Well, it might be a little bit intimidating, but we have something to help you with that in a bit as well. And then meet us for happy hour. So the first day should be fun. While the Baker's are getting their VIP treatment. Wednesday. We're all together. And we begin at 830. And we have a so the topic for I know I'm all over the place, y'all. This is not scripted, obviously. Bear with me. The theme for the interior design business success summit is whipping up success. What is it called? Oh my gosh, it just escaped me whipping up success in uncertain markets. There we go. whipping up success in uncertain markets. And so on Wednesday, our theme, the topic for Wednesday, falls underneath that, that umbrella of whipping up success in uncertain markets. And the topic is the bread and butter of business. So you you hear that we are having a whole theme of it we're following along the bakery because the speakers the speakers that we have our current and past master coaches in the interior design business bakery. So we have this entire theme that we're just continuing from outside the bakery outside the sugar and spice membership, the sugar and spice society into the the actual summits. We start at 830. And then your MCs are Hallie Agostinelli. And Debbie Pratt. Debbie Pratt is a master coach in the interior design business bakery. But more than that she has been with me at ml interiors group over the last 10 years has really evolved into a very pivotal role and is just a sweet friend of mine nonetheless. So they are going to be talking about the summit overview talking about need to know items. And we have a mixing bowl of dough. So in a nutshell, that need to know is what we're going to be doing to make sure that everybody gets connected and that we're not just standing around in little pockets of familiar faces. The mixing bowl bowl of dough is going to be some giveaways that we have. We kick off the morning with Nicolette von break. She's the sweetest thing and her topic is Dota dollars, business alignment and energetics. She is actually an well just in a nutshell, she's a badass, if you are following along on social media, I am introducing our speakers and sharing their bios online. And if you're on the email list, you're getting that as well. If you're not on either, what you need to do is when you're done here, you need to go and follow designed for the creative mind on Instagram, Facebook, wherever you wherever you get your social updates. And then what you can do, I would suggest downloading our review and planning guide on the website designed for the creative mind.com. There's a really great review and planning guide that I give you as an exchange for your email. I build my email list, and I practice what I preach But in return, it's a great, great, great tool. And then you can get on an email list and you'll get the insight on this and a handful of other things that we do over the course of the year. Our speaker Nicolette goes from 930 until 1030. And then we go right into a conversation with Ben Rutledge. His topic is local flavor and global reach unlocking online visibility. Again, this all falls within marketing. I want to give you some like very applicable tools. Ben's background, he's been running marketing agencies, they just started a fractional Chief Marketing Officer agency. He is the co founder of side mark with me. He's done my website, just overall marketing guru. He's going to be talking to you about unlocking your online visibility. Let's get you guys some business. That's our goal is like you should have some very impactful nuggets that you walk away with that you can apply immediately. We have lunch, and then we have another speaker and then we also have a few things in between Okay, so this is not just going to be back to back to back to back speakers where you're sitting on your ass the whole time. We've got some other things We're continuing to work out but I'm not going to talk too much about him right now in case we change them. Sarah right is our speaker. Sarah is the owner of s LW media and she just launched another business as well. But her focus is social. So her topic is mixing social media magic, building, engaging content. And if you've ever heard her speak, she was actually a speaker at the summit last year. And she is just a firecracker. We actually have to tell her to take her when she has to take her presentation off of fast forward because she just goes 100 miles an hour. Right back to back with Sarah is Maureen wingy. There we go. was a speaker at the summit maybe two years ago.
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And is just ape I know I say this about all of the speakers. But y'all, I am so excited about our speaker, she's a brand badass, her topic is the art of whipping up your personal brand, and creating a delicious identity. You can see how these topics all align with the theme of the day and under the umbrella of the theme for the event. Again, the theme for the event is whipping up success in uncertain markets. And then today, the topic for Wednesday is the bread and butter of business. It's marketing. You don't have clients if you don't mark it. So this is where we're starting. That is our speakers on Wednesday. But we do have a roundtables where our attendees sit down with Nicolette, they sit down with Maureen they sit down with Ben and they sit down with Sarah. And we have rotating roundtables. And then we have a private, private dinner at my residents. That's for the speakers only trying to figure out what to do for that I was gonna hire a personal chef. But then I was thinking, and I know this is just a tease because you're not invited. How rude of me and I'm talking about the dinner party. But I'm excited. I wonder if we maybe wouldn't want to do a taco truck outside maybe tacos and margaritas. Oh, that sounds fun, or brisket barbecue or something. So anyway, that's that's my pending my pending thought this morning. Imagine trying to bake a cake without a recipe. You kind of know what the ingredients are. But you don't know how to put it all together. After lots of hard work and trying different combinations, all you are left with is a sticky situation and a stomachache behave. Running an interior design business can feel exactly that same way. That is why I created the interior design business bakery. This is a program that teaches you how to bake your interior design business cake and eat it too. If you don't want to figure out the hard way, and you want guidance to follow a recipe that has already been vetted, someone that has already been there and done it and will help you do it too. Then check out the year long mentorship and coaching program, the interior design business bakery. If your interior design business revenue is below 300,000. Or if you're struggling to make a profit and keep your sanity, this is the only program for you. You can find that information at designed for the creative mind.com forward slash business dash bakery. Check it out. You won't regret it.
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Thursday, the fourth, the theme for Thursday is baking in your confidence. And it's the design business tactics. So we're taking you from marketing to the actual design business tactics. We have a kickoff at 9am. And the summit attendees. If you have not been to the summit, then one of the key ingredients the key ingredients to the fun of this is that you get a private tour of Dallas Market Center. We are going to walk you through and it's either going to be part of our part of my team MLW interiors group. They're very familiar with it or it might be somebody from Dallas Market Center. For those of you who have been to the summit before you knew that Michael Bauer was the one who gave us these wonderful tours, while he is now hosting us at Faizi rugs because he has changed positions since our last summit and face. He's just lucky to have them. The the tour guide is still TBD. But what we're going to do is we're going to take you around introduce you to different showrooms, but if you've never been to market or if you've never been to an interior design showroom, this is a great opportunity for us to hold your hand and introduce you and just take some of the fear and into amidation away from showrooms. I was scared just yeah, I'm trying to keep this a family friendly show. And not swear as often. But it I was intimidated. I was scared. I don't know. In other words, I was scared shitless of walking in and feeling like an imposter and feeling like I needed to know everything, and what are the prices? And how do you figure things out? It's not like it's like a regular, I don't know, pottery barn where you walk in and 13 people walk up and say, Hi, can I help you? Though, don't get me wrong, the showroom reps are fabulous and very attentive. But I was in my head. And I know that I'm not the only one. So we're going to walk you through this the tour. If you have been to the summit before, or if you're a member of the bakery, we're going to have a short strategy session with me. Oh, I just read that. So I guess I need to be prepared for that, too. As I'm reading this, I have been involved in the agenda. But Debbie and Hallie are the ones who are really driving the bus this year and have really up leveled the quality. So you're welcome for that. I'm not involved. Just reading this now and finding out when I need to speak. Okay, so we've got that strategy session. The next one, we come back from our tour and Renee Berry. Y'all might know her and love her. If if you don't know her, go check out her podcast, I'm going to be a guest there soon. I just yeah, I'm excited about that. She is an absolute doll. Her podcast is called the only girl on the job site, her specialty renovations, constructions, all the things. Her topic for this summit is from cravings to contracts and getting clients to sign. So she's giving some insight as to some of the ways that she navigates you know, somebody who has a craving for in a change in interior design, all the way through them signing your contract. I'm excited to hear that because I teach my rolling in the dough workshop. And I'm looking for some new stuff, just just some infusion of new fresh. So I'll be sitting here the whole time. I'm gonna be sitting in the background, getting infused with fresh ideas from all of these amazing speakers. We have lunch, another, you know, fun little thing that we're doing. And then Nicole lleno she's I think she has she bid. I don't think she was at our summit last year, but she's been at every Summit. Up until last year. I think our dates just did not align. And she's coming back. She has her own podcast to y'all on shakable entrepreneur, unshakable with Nicolino. She's just just, again, I keep saying that she's a badass, that we've got some great great speakers. Her topic is sifting through success, how a positive mindset can sweeten your interior design business. If you've been in business for any length of time, you know that there are some really big challenges that come with owning your own business, being an entrepreneur. Oftentimes, we have to grow ourselves in order to grow our business. We have to become somebody who can navigate successfully the level of success that we want. So I think that is probably the direction she's taking this conversation but we will find out I will be sitting in the audience with you. And she's always just a great uplift. So coming in after lunch, it would be a shame to not welcome her. Especially as you know after lunch, you're ready for nap. So after Nicole, we are switching directly into designers panel. We have battered not broken, finding business success during personal challenges. And I'm so excited to welcome three of my bakers who are also contributing as coaches within the bakery. So they've gone through the process. April Gandy was actually another one of my beta testers back in the time of the pandemic. I coached her and her mom on taught a lot of the content that we have in the bakery. And she gave me good feedback and helped me kind of craft some of the details. She's come back in as a coach in the bakery, Didi dewine. Holloway signed up as a baker I don't know a couple years ago and she just didn't want to leave so she had some great insight and content about kitchen and bath design. And so she teaches that in the in the bakery, and Heather ver Selena was I think she might have been my very first official baking class Baker class baking um, it's not like I'm really making cookies. It was she was either The first or the second, and now she's back in the bakery teaching things about navigating through the client experience. But their conversation is going to be finding business success during personal challenges. And y'all, they have, it's just you, we might have to have tissues. It's gonna be a good conversation. And then we have a roundtable with the speakers with Rene and Nicole and the design in the design panel. So what are we doing? Oh, fun, okay. And then we have something at 415 that I'm not going to talk about right now. We have a happy hour at Studio works for anybody who wants to attend from the summit as well. So studio works. Again, that is the co working space that I have created for interior designers, for contractors, builders, architects, interior photographers, landscape designers, artists, realtors, like anything that has to do with our industry, even as an offshoot. So we'll do that from 530 to seven. And then Friday, this is our last day together, and it's half a day, we are writing your success, writing your recipe for success, we're going to manifest the summit experience. So what we're going to do is we're going to take, we're going to take a lot of what you have learned a lot of what the speakers spoke about, and we're going to write your recipe like, we're going to spend some time actually putting pen to paper and creating your future. And I know that sounds woowoo and weird, but it works. So that's what we're gonna do. We've got a bunch of giveaways, we've got time to shop before you travel. And I think that's it. That's it. I say that's it, but holy cow, I've been talking for a while now. I'm so excited about this. If you're interested, all you need to do is go to design for the creative mind.com and then take a look click on the summit. You can also DM me through Facebook. Okay, so DM designed for the creative mind, do not DM my personal account what I've done and here's another little plug. Have you guys heard of many chat? Many chat, I've seen it all over Instagram, I actually signed up for it just to see what it was just there free, free 30 days for 14 days, whatever. And I've seen other like influencers not like I'm an influencer, but I see the value of what they're doing. And that is basically saying, hey, just DM me this word, okay. And then what happens is, is you DM on that word. And instead of me going back and contributing to what I think is now, what I would call text thumb, arthritis in my thumb that was probably growing. Instead of that, I have an auto reply set up so that I can send you the details of whatever word you sent me.
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I did not do this on many chat. I did this on side mark. You also mark is the CRM that just keeps giving, what's the CRM it's it's a client relationship manager, but basically, it's the sales and marketing software that I co founded. And I just keep learning things that it does. And it's amazing. So long story. There's a commercial for side Mark somewhere in this podcast that I created. But nonetheless, there's just another little another little plug for it. So if you DM me on facebook, google mob instace a boy that was a Texas twang, wasn't it? Facebook? Let's try that again. Facebook, Google My Business or designed for the creative mind. If you DM me the word Summit, you will automatically be sent the deets for the summit. So you can register? You're probably wondering, okay, fine, Michelle, but tell me that tell me the damn price. I completely forgot about that. The price. If you guys are familiar, I've cut the price in about half. I just heard you know, here's here's the deal. So I've cut the price in half. We used to be at about 2200. I brought it down to 1097 bucks. I think $1,097 My heart is with new to the business designers, I say young designers. I don't care if you're 80. But if you're young to the business, you're a young designer, baby designers, whatever you want to call them. That's where my heart is. It was counter effective to be attracting younger designers to the summit when it was $2,200. I've brought it down to just right around 1000 I know that's still an investment. But I firmly believe that you have to have some skin in the game if you're going to take action. If you're going to take action there has to be some level of pain or pleasure driving you. The pain is going to be paying for it. And that's going to drive you to action. The pleasure is going to be the experience that you have the coming unity that you gain, the lessons that you learn that you can apply to your business immediately. So you're gonna have pain, and then you're gonna have pleasure driving your actions. You will feel pain if you don't do anything about it, and you spend that 1000 bucks, plus your hotel and your airfare. But there's still plenty of time, you can still get some great deals, you can fly in and out of love field, in Dallas, Texas. That's where Southwest and I believe Virgin Airlines fly in and out of that super easy and accessible. You can fly any other major airlines into Dallas Fort Worth area into the Dallas Fort Worth airport. And then we'll send you the codes for the Virgin so that you can get actually really great rates. I think I might stay there for two nights as well. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out. Also, if you guys are enjoying this podcast, maybe not as long as commercial for the summer. Okay, but in general, I really appreciate if you would drop a review. If you would take a picture of where you listen to the podcast. Are you in your car? Are you putting on your makeup? Are you out for a walk, whatever, take a picture and tag me. And it's just it's so very powerful and so very appreciated. So with that, I'm gonna go finish my coffee, go check on my dog, make sure he's a little monster. He's all about five pounds, but he thinks he's just the greatest watchdog in the world. I'm gonna go make sure he's good. And I appreciate y'all. Thank you so much for listening if you're still here, and I hope and I pray that you take a look at the summit and can make it in person. How fun is it when people jump off the screen and I get to meet you and give you a big hug. All right, make it a great day, y'all. 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 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
