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.
Michelle Lynne 0:50
Hey y'all. Welcome back to the design for the creative mind. I'm your host, Michelle Lynn, and let me start by saying, Happy New Year. This is being recorded and first published in January of 2025 and I just want to say, hallelujah that 2024 is gone today. We're going to be talking about, and actually, I'm going to start a theme. And the theme is going to be how to to how to select, how to secure new clients after 2024 a lot of the feedback that I got was that getting new clients was more difficult because we didn't get as many calls, or they were a little bit more choosy, or whatnot. So I want to share with you what I learned in 2024 operating ml interiors group, which is my company. For those of you who are not familiar with me, my company is called ml interiors group, and we are located in Dallas, Texas, been in business since 2008 basically, really found my feet in 2013 and focused solely on interior design. That's that's a completely separate episode, but I want to share my street cred with you in respect to what we learned in 2024 and then talk to you about some of the tactics that I we're personally refocusing on the simplicity of the sales and marketing process and and breaking it down. And that's what I'm going to do for you over the next few episodes, at least, plus. And then I'll have some guests spattered in as well. But last year, I promised that I'd have some more educational solo podcasts. And since I promised, as my daughter would say, Pinky promise, that's what we're doing now. So let's dig into 2024 here's what I learned during this crazy time in the market, and a little bit about how we how we how we pivoted what I see coming up.
Michelle Lynne 2:52
So first of all, y'all the sales process. It took more time. Often times we would get an inquiry, or, yeah, even just like a Contact Us form on the website or a phone call, something along that line, and from that point of contact to the contract being signed could honestly be three maybe four weeks this past year, it was easily a good six to eight weeks to get through that entire process. A lot of times, clients needed more time to think about it, and we broke many more projects into phases once we secured the client, or maybe once we secured the sales process. And the sales process is a lot of what I teach in our rolling in the dough free workshop. I'm not sure when we'll be doing that again this year, but if you see that come across your inbox, be sure to sign up for it. But the client communication, we went heavy with automated email reminders. I've always done email reminders of, hey, don't forget. We've got an appointment coming up and so forth. But this year and I am going to give a gratuitous plug to sidemark, which is the software platform that I use that I'm a co founder of, to put these automations together. So what we basically do, and I'll go over this again in the future, in a future conversation. But what we basically do is, once we get the client's contact information, their email as well as their text, we're sending them reminders and telling them what they need to do to be prepared for these upcoming meetings.
Michelle Lynne 4:35
And this is in the sales process. And the reason why we're going heavy on this is to build their excitement and also to confirm the appointments, obviously, because we never like to be stood up. That doesn't happen very often, but to build the excitement and to show our level of professionalism as the expert in the field. So the automated emails were reminders were fantastic in the past. Our focus has been on full service white glove concierge experiences for our for our clients, what we what we looked at this year is, what can we dial back some of the white glove details may or may not make as much of an impact today as it did say five years ago, and by that it could be even just our design presentations are a little bit more simplified and not quite so perfect on screen. That allowed us some higher margins in regards to the time it would take to put that presentation together, so the clients still they don't know any different. They still saw the final product.
Michelle Lynne 5:52
They still saw samples of everything that they were being presented, and they still saw the rooms together. It just wasn't tweaked to the level of perfection that we had gone for before. So again, that falls back to my old adage of Done is better than perfect. But in this respect, it allowed us to just lessen our deliverables slightly, still, head and shoulders above, you know, the standard. But for the most part, it allowed us to, it allowed us to take less time and put more money in our pocket. So it was either one or the other, because there were some clients that really needed to have the perfect, not quite perfect, but pretty damn close to perfect execution. And the, you know, not just the Mercedes deliverable, but the Maybach. You guys are familiar with cars. You know, the Maybach is like the Mercedes on steroids. So anyway, those were some of the things that we kind of pivoted with. And what I think we have coming down the pipeline in 2025
Michelle Lynne 6:59
is probably, and I think, in my opinion, this is my humble opinion. I believe that part of the reason why 2024 was so hinky is a lot had to do with the uncertainty of the market, the uncertainty of the election, the uncertainty of the economy, etc, etc, now that we've gotten past that election, regardless of which side of the table you were on, I think that there's going to be a level of confidence that swings back in our direction, although we still have what we call more of this quiet recession. So the start of 2025 might be similar to 24 with slower, more careful and more thoughtful financial decisions.
Michelle Lynne 7:46
So at ml interiors group, we are continuing to tighten and improve our marketing. And so that's why I want to go down this podcast series, informal podcast series of marketing, sales, search engine optimization, and then, of course, we're going to continue to refine in our and improve our client experience. I have to make a decision as a business owner is, are we going to are we going to continue to refine and improve our client experience? And as the CEO, is like, what does that look like? So we're working on that. And one thing that I also want to leave you with, before we dive into this marketing aspect, is that our money stories, y'all our money stories are not our clients. Money stories luxury clients are in a different demographic, and they're generally more incentivized, or they make purchases more in order to save time than to save money. Now the way they can afford us is because they don't spend stupid money most of the time. We do have some clients that will spend some stupid money, and I'm very grateful for those. But for the most part, our clients are looking for us to save time.
Michelle Lynne 9:00
So keep in mind, you cannot control the economy, you cannot control global issues or politics, but you can control not only your mindset, but also your processes and your procedures, and that's what we're going to be talking about in the podcast. So grab a pencil, grab a pen, or listen in and take some good mental notes, because I really feel strongly about some of the content that we're going to be delivering in the next today's podcast, as well as going forward today. Let's start simply with social media. Social media and you might Don't, don't turn this off. Okay, do not turn this off. If you're groaning and rolling your eyes and you're saying, Oh, Michelle, I hate social media. Social media is so antiquated, and I'm tired of it. And la, la, la, and I'm here to tell you that, yes, yes, it is a pain in the booty. Sometimes it is getting dated, in my humble opinion. I'm not a marketing expert, but it. It feels dated, but I've always believed that social media is part of the gateway into your email.
Michelle Lynne 10:09
Your email is where the magic happens, and we're going to be talking about your email in the next few episodes. We'll be covering that, but today, talking about social media. Social media is kind of like throwing spaghetti on the wall. You want to see what's going to work, and then you're going to want to go ahead and repeat it, but throwing the spaghetti on the wall, or taking a shotgun approach, versus versus, like a laser targeted approach, is still how you're going to gather your audience. Your social media is not about the number of followers that you have. Y'all. You can go out and buy followers and and boost yourself up to 20,000 30,000 40,000 followers, whatever. But if they're not going to buy from you. If they are not your audience, it's it's wasted time and energy. You can make sales. You can invite prospective clients into your into your sphere from your social media, but you want to bring them into your email list. Social media should be a combination, and I've got some other mark.
Michelle Lynne 11:26
I've got some social media experts. I've got some marketing experts on on the podcast, we can go back and take a look at which episodes they are and link them in the notes, but I'm going to share with you my perspective and what we do with ml interiors group, because I bring a lot of people from mostly Instagram, okay, mostly Instagram, and we bring them onto our email list. I bring them to my website. I bring them to into a manner where they will exchange their email for some content that I will provide to them, and that puts them into my, let's just say my, I we own, we own our email list. We do not own our followers, but I bring a lot of people to email from social media, so I don't believe it can be negated on social media, there's not just looking for content that will entertain but you want to educate your clients. So you're going to educate them, you're going to entertain them, you're you're going to want to inform them. You're going to need to inspire them, and you're going to want to give them a you know, you need to give them a call to action, because you're not just Netflix where they can come and learn something or get entertained. So a friend of mine, Angeline, who is with the company that helps me with my social media, and they are called next chapter. Angeline with next chapter social, and her business partner Brooklyn, taught me the term e, i, e, i, o, and it's educate, inform, entertain, inspire, and then O is like opt in.
Michelle Lynne 13:22
So you're not necessarily giving them a call to action on every single post, but you are going through this e, i, e, i, o scenario and taking your followers along this journey. So don't get lost in whether it is a static post, or whether it's a carousel, or whether it's a real or whether it's a story. A lot of times, if you will sit down and you will plan your social media out in advance, your content is going to dictate what format it is delivered in. So many people get stuck trying to break the algorithm or figure it out and navigate it and so forth, and I just want to tell you that don't bother you are an interior designer. You are a business owner. You are not here to crack the code on any social media find content that educates, inspires, informs, entertains, and then you call them into your circle. It does not have to be perfect. In fact, more often than not, the people that are watching do not want perfection. They do not want highly edited formats, content and so forth. So just be yourself. That's what I'm trying to say, is be yourself. Imagine trying to bake a cake without a recipe.
Michelle Lynne 14:50
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. 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 16:10
And here's something, babe is, if you don't have a lot of followers right now, when you are making potentially dorky reels, there's not going to be many people who see it. Okay, so, so take the time if you don't have a lot of followers, to not have perfect social media, but also knowing that people don't want perfect social media people are in general. This is my opinion. This is my opinion. So
Michelle Lynne 16:37
nobody wants to be intimidated or feel like they're being judged by somebody who is perfect. So if you are being yourself in this format, then people are going to hear your voice, and that's how you're going to find clients that you enjoy working with. So social media, if you want to entertain them, you might show them a behind the scenes. So I'm just going to give you some some examples a behind the scenes. Y'all behind the scenes of a photo shoot is pretty darn entertaining. But it could also be behind the scenes when you are looking at fabric samples and happen to wear black and you're covered in black, it's it's entertaining. It could be entertaining that you're sharing with them a trip to market, or how many fabric samples you did go through in order to find the perfect pillow combination? So it's entertaining, something that could be inspiring, in my opinion, again, all of this is my opinion. Is my podcast, so yay. I get to say whatever I want, basically, that that's a whole other topic. But my point is, is that something that you could do to inspire is, is maybe it's just a an inspirational quote. When I was doing my marketing, my social media, and I was really young in it, I would every Monday, it was motivation, Monday, Monday motivation. It was Monday motivation. So I would give something that was motivational on a Monday.
Michelle Lynne 17:59
Okay, that's kind of dorky, but it works, and it's a good inspiration, because who doesn't like to be lifted up? So you could, you could, you could do that easily. So we did entertain, we did an inspire, educate. Is literally take a piece of your business and educate your audience as to what it entails. For example, here's a good one, for example. Y'all, it takes a minimum of 90 days to get a a whole house, or at least part of a house, depending on the size of the house and the the complexity of it. But design does not happen in two weeks or four weeks. So educating the client as to how many steps goes into a design, how many decisions have to be made just for a single room? In fact, that's been a, really an on trend post, is how many decisions went into the space, and the designers like saying, you know, listing all of the decisions that go into that space so that a potential client is saying, Oh, it's not just rainbows and fairy dust and poof, my room is pretty. There's a lot of decisions that go into it. So as you're educating on social media, what you're also doing is you're setting yourself up as the trusted authority.
Michelle Lynne 19:17
You're setting yourself up as the expert. You're also setting yourself up as a value added solution to somebody's life, because you're making all these decisions for them. So keep in mind the people that hire us, yeah, people want to save money. They they want to save pain, but most of our clients want to save time. So sharing with them how you do that. It's part of your sales tactic, but it's going through your marketing channel. So let's see we did, entertain, educate, inspire, inform you. Can inform them how you work. This is how I do this. This is how I. Do that. This is why it's important to you, so you can do that, and then for the O. And I know Angeline might. I don't think Angeline listens to my podcast, but she teaches because she's busy herself, but she teaches this. And, oh, it's probably something else, but I call it opt in. At that point, you want to give them a call to action. You want to share with them. Hey, come sign up for X, Y or Z, and this is what you're going to get or call us today. It could even be call us today. So even though we want to be bringing people onto our website, it's literally you want to just tell them in no uncertain terms that you are you are inviting them to come to work with you on some of your other posts. You can say, Hey, give us a call today, and let's explore blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but in this particular post, and it's what every fifth post, so it's every couple of weeks, you're going to want to say, opt in with me, and this is the journey we're going to take, or share this post with somebody you know will benefit from interior design or whatever.
Michelle Lynne 21:09
Don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. If you have a lead magnet, and by lead magnet or a freemium what I mean by that is you create something that somebody will exchange their email address with you for that deliverable I have on my website, the oh, goodness, I think the three things to do before hiring an interior designer so you could do that, you could do, What is the average investment for furnishing a space, or what you need to know before hiring an interior design, I come up with something that your clients are gonna want to download and learn from you for free. It I mean now I'll tell you that the ones these days of like, the top of my top my top 10 favorite white colors y'all that's dated. They can go to Google for that. They can go to Pinterest for that. It's it's too easy to find it somewhere else. Give them something of value. And when you are doing this, this Freemium or this lead magnet, you want to give away more than you feel comfortable with. Yeah, let me repeat that you want to give away more than you feel comfortable with. This way the client feels. And this is, I don't know how to explain it, but it is a natural human tendency to want, if they receive something, they want to give something back.
Michelle Lynne 22:38
So if you're giving them so much value, so much goodness in this free content they're going to want to give back to you, whether that is continuing to follow and really support you on social media, whether it is referring you to others that they know would benefit from your skills, or calling you themselves. It's a natural human tendency to give after they've received. And I'm not saying that's the only reason you go into it, but that's just a little bit of insight as to why a lead magnet can work so well. So head over to chat, G, P, T, and see if you can get some ideas as to what you can create to give away. Create it in Canva, and then you can download it as a PDF, and then you upload it into your into your software that you use for distribution. So if you're on MailChimp, you can do it there. If you're on Active Campaign, you can do it there. And a gratuitous plug to side mark.
Michelle Lynne 23:36
The side mark is where you can easily you can upload it. You can create the form, and then you can go into those automations that I was talking about earlier, where it drops you into an email automation, where they go through your sales pipeline and into your nurture series, which is what we'll do on another episode. I want to be respectful of your time. It's the first part of the year. I'm still trying to play catch up. Holy cow, I'm still trying to play catch up after being out for a couple of weeks with the holidays. So let's recap that real fast. I'm not going to recap 2024 and what we're doing in 2025 but let's talk about social media. Social media is the gateway into your circle. It's the gateway into your realm where you want to be bringing them. It brings them into your email list, which is where you give the first details. Like, if you subscribe with me, you'll be the first to hear about any upcoming specials, or any upcoming events, or whatever you want to make it so that they feel like they are special in the inner circle with you, versus just another follower on social media.
Michelle Lynne 24:55
Believe it or not, because I could, I could just hear a few of you. Okay, I'm sitting here. In my podcast studio, and I could still hear some of you guys eyes roll, like, why would they want to be hang out with me, or whatever? Y'all the industry we are in is sexy. You are interesting to other people. I think a lot of times we just get so we're so familiar with ourselves. Like, yeah, I'm boring. Well, yeah, I am boring, but I'm boring in a special way. So be yourself and invite people in to hang out in this little, you know, magical corner of interior design land. Do not underestimate the power of the industry that we're in and the beauty that you create and the interesting dynamic and perspective that you bring to this industry. So invite people into your corner. Social media is, Instagram is, is huge for and I have some statistics on this. I did a training on the inside the interior design business bakery on this but do not, do not assume that Instagram is the one and only place to be. There are more people on Facebook daily, if I recall correctly, that are shopping or looking for something. So you can get inside the private groups. Go into the private groups and talk about what you do there, do your standard posts.
Michelle Lynne 26:25
You should have a business page on Facebook as well, which is also something that I probably shouldn't have to say, but I'm going to say it anyway, is keep your personal and your professional opinions separate. Okay, so you have Instagram, you have Facebook, you're getting on there, and if you feel led, and this is what I do, is I keep my personal and my professional profile separate. I have a separate private profile on Instagram where I share my beliefs, my religion, my politics, my kid and so forth, but I don't do that on my professional account, Instagram, Facebook. Do not rule Facebook out. LinkedIn is a fantastic place because a lot of our clients are on LinkedIn. Pinterest, y'all. Pinterest is not a social media platform, it is a search engine. So we will talk about that separately when it comes to some marketing as well and X, formerly known as Twitter, I'm not on there. I can't speak Lee about that was a lot of noise to me when I was on it back in the day. So I don't know if I left anything out.
Michelle Lynne 27:40
Consistency is key. No matter what platform you're targeting, consistency is key. I have been told that between two and three days a week is enough to post, but consistency is what keeps your content in front of your audience's eyes, but it also keeps your name on the their top of mind. So consistency is key. Another thing that I highly recommend, and you guys are going to get tired of me promoting side mark, but we have, we are making some amazing changes to this platform. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, you can go to my sidemark.com if you have any questions, you can actually, literally reach out to me directly, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. You can get a free trial. But anyway, I already have a commercial for side mark on this on this podcast, so I'm not going to go into any more detail right now. However, a huge practice, whether you use side mark, or whether you use tailwind or plan, plan only, or whatever. I think even on meta, you can pre plan your posts going through.
Michelle Lynne 28:49
And this is what I was talking about when you're looking at some of the e, i, e, i o content, pre plan it, put it on a spreadsheet, if you will, and pre plan your content. And then what you can do is you can then create and pre schedule your content so that you're not having to spend a lot of time on the fly, or just by the seat of your pants, trying to come up with something because you haven't posted in two days, sit down and be intentional, create the content, pre schedule it and let it flow. All you have to do at that point is set aside 15 to 30 minutes every day to go back and respond to anybody who has shared your content, anybody who has commented, and then also start to engage with others. So let's talk about some engagement on social media, because you're wondering, how does that bring me? How does that bring me new clients? Right? Well, there's a couple things you want to find out, where your clients, or your ideal client, is. Hanging out online? Are they hanging out at or looking at one of the local boutiques? Are they hanging out and commenting on community groups like, where are they? And that's where you want to go, and that's where you want to make comments.
Michelle Lynne 30:20
So for example, if it's ml interiors group, and there's a cute little boutique, think it's called girly girls, I don't know, but there's something in my new neighborhood, I could go there and comment on how cute it is and how great it would be to wear it in this cold weather here in Dallas, or whatever. And then somebody else in my neighborhood would very likely see my comment, and they might say, Oh, who's this? ML interiors group, click on me and start following me, or even starting to call after they followed. And like, you know, what do you call it? Socially stalked me or whatever. So with that, that's how you get eyeballs on you in your neighborhood. Is is being strategic about who you are commenting on? It could be a local dentist. It could be a local plastic surgeon. Like, where are your people hanging out? Could be your local golf course club page, tennis club page, whatever that looks like. Find what works for you naturally, and go there. And don't forget in all of this is don't hesitate to be self promotional. Y'all. Do not be shy. Do not play small. Make sure everybody and their bestie knows exactly what you do and how to get in touch with you. So let's, oh my gosh, okay, I was about to wrap up, but let me remind you on your social media, make sure you put your location, your location, location, location.
Michelle Lynne 31:50
So as ml interiors group, I don't scroll a lot of other designers anymore, but as the design for the creative mind business coach, I'm looking at Interior Design profiles all the time, and there's a lot of times I don't even know where this person is, and then I'll click through to their website, like, maybe I'm taking a call because they want to talk to me about joining one of my paid programs. So I'm talking to him, like, Girl, where are you from? She's like, Oh, this where I'm from. We'll put it on your profile for your social media and put it on your website so people know. Okay, so that's that, please y'all for the love. Do not hesitate to reach out to me via via email. You can reach me at hello at design for the creative mind, but you can find design for the creative mind Instagram or Facebook. Most I'm mostly on Instagram, alright, so if you have any questions, or if you have any particular topics, please do not hesitate to email me at hello at design for the creative mind. Please do not hesitate to DM me at design for the creative mind, mostly on Instagram is the easiest way to find me.
Michelle Lynne 32:59
And of course, y'all, I would really appreciate any reviews that you can leave wherever you listen to your podcast. And finally, for those of you who are interested in learning how we can work together, you can head over to design for the creative mind.com and check out the different workshops that I'll be offering, check out the different coaching programs and platforms that I have. So for example, there's a sugar and spice that is specifically intended to work on marketing so that you can get clients, so that you can get into the other levels of coaching that I offer. So hell, while you're on Instagram, just comment suite on any of the posts, and I will send you the information for sugar and spice society that is a membership for six months that is designed to get you up and running with your marketing and new clients. So thanks for listening. I appreciate it. It was a little bit off the cuff. Today. I'll go make some notes. I'll get organized for this upcoming informal series on marketing. Thanks for being here. Please don't hesitate to share design for the creative mind with any of your design besties. Again. Happy New Year, and I'll see on the next episode. Be great today.
Michelle Lynne 34:18
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
