We received this question from an interior designer:

Dear Dakota, I'm going to be hiring my first full time employee. What do I need to know and do? 

Hiring your first full time employee is a big step (ps: it’s NOT the same as bringing on a 1099 subcontractor). It usually means your business is expanding, your workload is steady, and you’re ready to bring in support so YOU can focus on the parts of the business only you can do.  

As exciting as it is, it can also feel scary and overwhelming. You want your new team member to feel welcomed and supported, but you also want to make sure you hire the right person (because hiring mistakes are expensive and time consuming!).

Note: this is not legal advice and I am not an employment attorney. Please check with an attorney in your state for any state-specific requirements.

Here’s what I recommend to help you start your new employee off on the right foot:

Wondering how much of your team's time should actually be billable?

If you're trying to run a profitable design firm (without burning out your team or yourself), knowing the right billable hour targets for each role is essential. In this member-only article, we’re breaking down ideal billable percentages for junior designers, project managers, renderers, and even you as the business owner, plus what non-billable time is actually worth keeping on the calendar.

Subscribe to The DTS Files or log in to access the content.

As an interior designer, when it comes to specifying kitchen, bath, and office cabinetry, there are several options available. In some respects, there are significant differences. But in other respects, specs for cheaper or less customized cabinetry options can be swapped out with few discernible differences. Variations with cabinetry selections exist within internal structure, joinery methods, wood species quality, hardware, and of course, cost.

Let’s begin with top-notch, premium cabinetry options.

When onboarding is done right, your client will feel validated, confident they’ve made the right choice, and taken care of.

And you, the business owner? You’ll feel organized, professional, and in control. You’ve just put yourself in a good spot until it’s time to officially begin the client’s project.

Not to mention, the whole project starts off on the right foot and the client is more likely to trust your process even before you’ve done an OUNCE of design work. 

WOOP WOOP.

But when onboarding is messy (which, based on my experience working with designers since 2017, it probably is!), everything feels harder than necessary, you haven’t built immediate confidence with the client, AND the entire process is impacted.

That’s why I love HoneyBook for creating a seamless, elevated onboarding process that keeps things moving and saves you hours of admin time while providing a luxe experience. HoneyBook is a CRM, Client Relationship Management software, that allows you to streamline all components of client communication in one place and leverage automations and workflows to save time and elevate your client experience. There are other programs that do this as well, but—after working with hundreds of interior design business owners—HoneyBook is my preferred CRM software (and the one we use for our company as well). 

Here’s how you we recommend interior designers use HoneyBook during the onboarding phase of their projects:

Let’s be honest: most client chaos isn’t intentional.

It’s not that your interior design clients WANT to make your life harder or slow their project down.

They just want to make sure their project turns out as great as it possibly can. And they, more often than not, simply don’t know how the process works or what is normal/not normal.

And what happens when they don’t know?

• They go rogue and start shopping on their own, sending you ideas to “help you”.

• Or they delay approvals because they’re waiting for their sister or best friend to weigh in.

• Or they suddenly want to be looped in on every single update and delivery schedule, micromanaging the very process they hired you to handle for them.

Sound familiar?

The truth is interior design clients unknowingly derail their own projects all the time. And unless you set expectations clearly from the start, the entire experience can turn from elevated to exhausting. 

Fast.

The good news?

It’s almost 100% avoidable. (When is it NOT avoidable? When you’re letting bad fit clients infiltrate your pipeline.)

Here’s how to keep your clients in check (for lack of better words) while making them feel totally supported throughout the entire process. Or, as I like to say, “How you can make Nos sound like YESes.”

It could be argued that no single person has influenced American architecture and design more than Frank Lloyd Wright. You likely have some familiarity with his life and work. But you may not realize the extent to which his life was filled with controversy, eccentricity, scandalous love affairs and marriages, tragedy, family desertion, perilous debt, and financial ruin. He was hugely charismatic, also pompous, a narcissist, a curmudgeon, a control freak, a self-promoter, a manipulator, an adulterer, a home wrecker, and a genius.

Read on. His story is just too interesting not to delve into. 

Dear Dakota,

I know I’m undercharging for my services. How do I figure out what other interior designers charge to see where I land?

Join The DTS Files for my advice and answer. It’s NOT what you think.