Michelle Lynne 0:00
Music. 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 Woo, woo, 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, you
Michelle Lynne 0:48
Michelle, hey, hey, hey, y'all welcome back to the design for the creative mind podcast. I am Michelle Lynn, your host, and I am coming at you solo today, talking more about marketing. I had mentioned in my last episode that we're going to do just a short series on marketing. I'm focusing on that over on my Instagram as well, and I will be hosting a free three day master class on marketing on February the third. So if you're interested in the marketing master class, you can head over to designed for the creative mind.com click on the workshops link, and you can join us for free. I'd love to have you and make sure you say hello when you're there, it's going to be on Zoom. Say hello, tell me that you came from the podcast. Love to see your face, too. And then, of course, designed for the creative mind is also the name of the handle for Instagram, so come on over there and you can get some more free marketing content. So I am Michelle Lynn. I'm the owner of ml interiors group, which is a seven figure award winning interior design firm in Dallas, Texas. I am one foot in interior design and two feet in interior design business coaching. I have been featured in Forbes, modern luxury, Martha Stewart, Southern Living, lux and other publications, and I'm a trusted advisor to small business owners in the interior design industry. So you're in the right place, babe, because I serve designers who have achieved five figures in revenue and want to scale to multiple six figures with profit and passion, and that's what we're going to be doing today. Because y'all, things are different in the market today. I mean, I don't know about you, but my design firm last year slowed way down in 2024 and actually it started slowing down in 2023 so what's working back in 2019 2021 2022 it's just not quite the same. But you know, I think that some of the adjustments that we've made in our business. That's what I want to share with you here. It's what I want to share in the marketing masterclass in February, 3, fourth and fifth. That's three days. And actually we have a couple bonus days too, so you can pencil in all five days, but a lot of it is also just coming back to the basics. So that's what I want to talk about today, coming back to the basics and talking about defining your unique brand and then discovering your ideal client. There's going to be a lot of just taking some time to revisit where you started. For the most part, there's sometimes where you're just running and gunning so much that you don't have the opportunity to even go back and confirm that you're on point with your branding and who you have evolved into, or same thing with your ideal client, if who you're marketing to today is who you were marketing to two or three years ago that you have become more sophisticated. Your client needs to become more sophisticated. So what we want to do is getting your unique branding and messaging set up so that anything that you do will stand out in the market and speak directly to your ideal client. The first thing you want to do is you want to attract your dream clients by discovering and defining your unique brand. What I mean by that is that when you're speaking to everyone, you're speaking to no one, and by speaking, I mean the copy on your website, the voice you're using and the content you're publishing in your blog, the newsletters that you're sending to your email list, your social media captions, your Pinterest pins, anything that is being published put out there if you were trying to. Market to everybody, then you're really not getting through to anybody. So when you build a business, if you're not doing some brand discovery, you're likely going to feel incongruent with who you are, and what happens is, is it attracts the wrong clients. So for example, for ml interiors group when I first started, and for the first few years, I actually my branding was my identity, and my branding was the glamorously functional interiors for the busy professional. But when I talk or when I show up, I am not glamorous. I am not glamorous. So it was like, I don't want to get that dressed up to go on my client meetings. I don't want to be that glamorous to as a brand. That's not me. If you've been in my world for any length of time, you know that's not me. I am much more comfortable in jeans and a blazer or, you know, cute skirt and some flats. I do not want to be wearing a dress and some high heels. My My voice was casual and fun, but my brand was glamorously functional interiors, so it was not in alignment. So here's some things that you're going to want to do, and spend some time thinking about what do you want for your business? Okay, just spit ball these all out in a journal on a blank piece of paper. There's no wrong answers. But once don't just think about it. Write these things down, because there is power in the physiology of the written word. What do you want for your business? What types of projects do you want? What kind of revenue Do you want? What kind of lifestyle do you want? Those types of things, and then, how would you describe your brand personality? That's what I mean. When I was talking about I was glamorously functional interiors, but that was not congruent. So now we are smart, sophisticated and fun. Is who, what our identity is. So those can also be, you know, considered values in business. We're smart with our clients money, we're sophisticated with our designs and our processes, and we're fun to work with. So it's not a full brand strategy, but But start thinking about these details about who you are, and then be boldly yourself. And by that, I truly mean that your uniqueness is truly what is going to make a lot of your clients hire you. You want to get crystal clear on on on yourself. And if you've ever done what's called a SWAT assessment, write down your strengths. Write down your weaknesses. Why write down your opportunities and your threats? S, w, o, t, SWOT, and this is not your design style, babe. This is This is you. What are your strengths? Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats? What is your business's strengths? Weaknesses, Opportunities and threats you want to go ahead and and it might feel a little braggy, and it's not. It might not be comfortable if you are one that tends to play small but write out everything that makes you a badass. Like, what is it that you bring to the table that makes you a badass? Your strengths is this, and this could be anything from you're coming out of another career, and you're bringing some skills from that career, or you have been a stay at home mom, and you've launched children while also maintaining a home that is comfortable and still beautiful. Now, oftentimes when I say that, the response is, yeah, well, my house wasn't all that beautiful, but babe, I'm sure it was. You're just a little bit more critical of your own and more than likely, you didn't have our clients deep pockets, okay? So just be gentle with yourself and list out the reasons why you are a badass. List out your professional experience, whether it's design or not design. I did not come from an interior design traditional education. I didn't work with other interior designers as an intern, or anything along that line. I bring my background from from corporate business, which I used to hide from, and think that that was a weakness when I sat down and did this exercise, the SWAT exercise, and some of the other stuff. We go into a really deep dive in my paid programs. This is enough to be dangerous. With this, I've figured out that my strength was actually my business acumen. It wasn't a weakness. So sitting down and writing things out, you will have some epiphanies. 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.
Michelle Lynne 10:25
After lots of hard work and trying different combinations, all you are left with is a sticky situation and a stomach ache. Babe 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.
Michelle Lynne 11:40
Another thing to be considering in regards to your uniqueness is, do you have a signature style or service you? You know what I mean, like if you, if you're scrolling through Instagram and you see somebody's work, you might say, Oh, that looks like McGee and CO or, Oh, that might look like urbanology designs. Oh, that might look like Toby fairly so. So take a look. And if you have a signature style or service, this is a, this is a a unique miss that you want to promote. And then, why do people hire you? They hire you a lot of this is because, is because of your personality, because of your presentation, because of the way you carry yourself. Once I got out of the you know, glamorously functional interiors for busy professional gig, thought whatever once I once I broke out of that mold and I truly just embodied myself, my own badassness, my my uniqueness was able to it was able to fly free. My uniqueness was able to fly free. And I could be a little bit silly, a little bit weird and quirky. I could be witty like fun, smart, sophisticated and fun. I could be that person, and y'all the authenticity, I mean, that word is so overused, but the authenticity, I believe, really resonated with the audience, with our prospects, and then who became our clients. So be yourself. Be yourself the the next thing you're going to want to do, and this is so that you can, again, just as a reminder, you need to know who you are and what you stand for, then you're going to discover your ideal client profile, okay? And and those, those two are going to merge. So you need to know who you are, so you know who you're attracting and also repelling, so that way you're not marketing to the wrong client. You don't want to market to DIY clients. You don't want to market to clients who are looking for for for cheap stuff clients, if they're going to hire an interior designer, yeah, they want to be smart with their money. They're not going to just throw it away. But they're not looking for you to go to home goods, okay? And if they are, then that's not going to be your client, because, babe, you cannot make a living off of shopping at home goods. I tried it. I totally tried. I fell on my ass. Okay, so discovering your ideal client. What you want to do is you want to really dig into the qualities of the ideal client, the characteristics of your best client, the values of your best client, your ideal client. If you've never had any clients that that line up with, who you want to work with, you're just creating an avatar. That's all you're doing. This ideal client is fully make believe. If you've been in business for a while, you might take a. Little bit from one client and write that down because they were fabulous in that area, and then a little bit from another client because they were fabulous in that area. If you've been in business for a while, you might even see there's a pattern. So at ml interiors group, what we did is we created our ideal client profile, and then probably we made the mistake of not visiting it for probably another four or five years. This is an exercise that you want to do for the first few years after you identify your ideal client and tweak it, and then you'll do it every three years. And then you'll do it every five years when we went back to do it after we had originally created our ideal client, and we looked at some of our other clients that we really enjoyed working with in the interim, like whatever it was, it was like three year gap or something. We noticed patterns, like they had second homes. We noticed that their kids were not old enough to drive, but they could easily get themselves dressed. So they were, you know, a little bit younger, but they weren't babies. It was a married couple, and the mom was a stay at home mom who was just too busy and did not know how to make her home beautiful, but the kids were old enough that they weren't afraid of investing in good furniture. So you'll see this pattern. And then what we did is we took all of these similarities from client to client to client, and that's what we created our ideal client from. Okay, so keep in mind this ideal client profile is still fictional. What we're doing is we are directing all of our marketing, all of our advertising, all of our sales efforts towards this individual that doesn't even exist, okay, but she does, and we gave her a name. So what, what's going to happen is, is that the the avatar is going to call you, so you're going to say, oh my gosh, all of these, all of these topics that I was talking on, they are exactly who I've been marketing to. And here's the deal, y'all, they are such a pleasure to work with. They're a pleasure to work with. So you're going to find yourself having much more fun working with these individuals. They're going to value the work that you do, and it's going to be like hanging out with a friend. They just pay you now some things that you can do to get to start diving deep. And we dive really deep in both the interior design business bakery, and then we have recently re released the key ingredients, which is like a diet bakery. So if you have any, if you're interested, if this, if this tickles, you, make sure you do register for our workshop starting on February 3. You can find that information at, designed for the creative mind, same as the podcast name, so it's not difficult, designed for the creative mind.com. And then click on workshops, and you can get yourself registered for free. We've got a workbook that we go through all of this stuff in detail. And then, of course, if you in that workshop, I will also be introducing you to the key ingredients, which is our I call it the diet bakery, okay? And in that, in the key ingredients, and in the interior design business bakery, we really dive deep, spending time identifying your ideal client. Some things you can do today is interview past clients, ask you know, or just go back and try to remember some things like, What were their hobbies? What were their interests? What were they? What were they? What were they busy doing? So if you had been in their home for any length of time, you might know that they love to sail, or you might know that they love dogs or whatever. Okay, then what you can also ask is, what problems did you have that led me or led you to call me? So? What problems do they have? And then, of course, what I just explained to you like we had to they were married, heterosexual couple that had kids that were old enough to get themselves dressed but not old enough to drive. Like, what sort of family do they have? What sort of careers are they in, and what part of town do they live in? So these are the things that you're going to be looking at. And then, of course, some of the other things that we that we dive into is like, where do they shop? What brands do they are they loyal to? What hotels do they stay at? What do they collect? All of these types of things. So in the bakery, the worksheet to figure out your ideal client profile has, I think, 39 or 40 questions and key points to really help you. Dive into your avatar. So so this is where you want to go back to and and truly start revisiting some of the basics. Take this time, if you're if you're feeling a little bit slow in your business, this is what you want to do. Start with the basics. Go back, revisit you and your revisit your brand, revisit your ideal client avatar, and then revisit designed for the creative mind podcast, because we're going to be talking more about marketing next week, and, of course, design for the creative mind.com
Michelle Lynne 20:39
go to the workshop tab, it's up at the top left, and register for our marketing marketing master class. It begins February 3. The content that we just went through, it's going to we're going to go into more detail there, and then we're going to go into even more detail in the key ingredients, which I'm going to be introducing you to. But don't worry the the free workshops, y'all, I piss off some other coaches because my free stuff is better than some of their paid stuff. So you're not going to get just a commercial for my paid programs. You're going to get some juicy content and a workbook that will take you through these details. Okay, so Thanks y'all for being here. I hope you got some good content from today, reinvigorating your marketing. Come back next week, we're going to be talking about marketing again. Hang out with me in the interior designers business launch pad. We're doing a free live training in there once a week as well, and that you can find on Facebook. It's the interior designers business launch pad, yeah, yeah, I know it's Facebook, y'all, but that's the best place for these private groups, so be great today and every day. 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 you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
