082: Artistry and Design Combined
Michele (0:01) Brita is joining us on the podcast today. She has over 30 years of experience helping clients create homes that they love to live in. She does everything from renovations to home furnishings and she is passionate about leveraging art to inspire design. She has an art background. She loves the collaborative and layered process. We'll talk about that a little bit on the show today. Her roots are Swedish and her modern sensibilities make her a natural advocate for craft and sustainability. She loves to embrace the pragmatic and the spiritual, the functional and the beautiful. She serves a wide variety of busy professionals and art lovers and others that are in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the greater Twin Cities area and beyond. Brita and I began working together, a little over a year ago and it has been such a pleasure watching her create a business that suits her, instead of having to shift who she was to fit into some mold, real or perceived. So we're going to be talking about that process on the show today, about how she has learned to embrace her superpower at ADHD, and how giving herself the freedom to live and work outside of the proverbial box has been a joy. I hope you enjoyed the podcast.
Michele (1:54) Hey Brita, welcome to the podcast today.
Brita (1:57) Good morning, Michele. Fun to be here. Yeah.
Michele (2:00) Good. I'm excited to have you here. I know you and I have worked together on and off for a while and we've been waiting for the day for you to kind of have come into your own. So that we could have an opportunity to have this conversation. So I feel like a mother hen. Look at my little chick.
Brita (2:22) Well, thank you. Thank you. I think it was almost just a year ago where I reached out to you. I signed up for Understanding Your Financials Course online. I was stumbling into so many areas that I just thought, "Help". You were ready to put me on your calendar for January. So it has been just about a year.
Michele (2:42) Oh, wow. Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that because that Understanding Your Financials Course what is so beautiful about it, not only does it teach you how to read your financial statements, which is hugely important, but it starts to highlight areas of is that really what I want to be my income stream or is that really Where I want to make more money? Or am I doing what I want to be doing? So it becomes prescriptive in some ways for other areas of the business. lt shines a spotlight on everything we're doing. And I think that's what you found as well.
Brita (3:15) Oh, definitely. It was your way of getting into somebody and finding their weak points and saying, "It's not going to be a problem, I'm going to help you through that". So it wasn't about the financials, as you so often say. "It's never about the financials, everybody can do the math. It's about everything else that people bring to the table". So I found refuge in your coaching. I think it is really wonderful.
Michele (3:38) Yeah. And it's funny, so many people tend to think I'm just going to talk about this for a second before we jump in, because I think you brought up a good point. So many people tend to think well Michele's just a financial coach. I use your financials to help determine are you where you want to be, or are you not where you want to be? And then it tells me the story of where to dig and look next in your business, to help you get to where you want to be. So it is a tool that I use to figure out if the choices that you're making all year are getting what you desire, or are they not? So it's more than let me teach you how, what the numbers mean and how to do the math. It's way so much more. It's just a piece of what we look at, right?
Brita (4:23) Oh, definitely. And it's almost like you go down a rabbit hole of everything else. And I will say that the past year has been very, very challenging in that way. And I put everything into it and doing what I needed to do to be where I am today. And I'm just happy and excited and looking forward to the new year. So...
Michele (4:44) That's awesome. So Brita, tell us a little bit about how your business started when you started originally in interiors, what did that look like? And when was that?
Brita (4:54) Well, that was a long, long time ago. I have had my business for almost 30 years now. It was after college, I had gone the Liberal Arts College Education route. I majored in art. I always knew that I wanted to be a painter. I graduated from college without a plan. And so you can kind of see the idea that you're going to be a starving artist. I remember I brought that up in one of our first coaching calls, and you stopped me dead in my tracks and said, "Well, what about a well-fed artist"? I hadn't realized that so much of my identity was wrapped up in this idea that I could never figure out how to make money with my creativity. So...
Michele (5:36) That subliminal message, they have it. It's that money conversation that I talked about, go back to your past, what someone said. And that idea about starving artists then, makes us feel like we can't charge or that we won't be able to make money. When you take it and parlay it into interiors or any other part, we carry that with us. It's so funny, I remember saying to you, "Why do you have to be starving? Why not well-fed"? And it was just a moment, right? It was just a thought.
Brita (6:07) Yeah.
Michele (6:08) But it stuck with you. And it's been interesting when you and I were emailing before we started the podcast recording, you made mention of that and said, that really, like staying with you and kind of informed you. You started becoming inquisitive after that right. Why can't I?
Brita (6:27) Right, right.
Michele (6:28) Yeah.
Brita (6:29) Well, there's also something the world tells you that your art is completely separate from business life. It has this place that isn't part of the business world. So, if I were going to enter this business world, that somehow I would be untrue to myself too. I wouldn't be as authentic, which I've discovered is not the case. Definitely not. So I'm finding that authenticity and growing the last year has been the business Education for me too, because, in addition to your podcast and your coaching, I went deep into everybody, all these other wonderful podcasts, and communities that are offering support and ideas and enthusiasm and sharing stories. And that has been absolutely critical in the past year as well. So thank you for being part of that.
Michele (7:20) Oh, you're so welcome. So you came out of school.
Brita (7:24) Yep.
Michele (7:24) Started your business over 30 years ago with art. When did you move into interior design?
Brita (7:30) Well as many people do, who are creatives they end up with retail. Growing up I was always designing things, always creating things, always trying to sell something or hold a carnival. I sold greeting cards door to door. I was always this sort of entrepreneurial spirit for sure. So that translate well into retail. I worked at a furniture store. I was hired by the owner when he overheard me trying to help a friend of mine decide which desk to buy. I can talk about design easily. I love talking about design. And writing about it and explain to the people who don't get a design or may not be as visual. How visuals work, how design works, what it means. And those are the types of things I love to do and that skill definitely helped me in retail sales. And from there, I moved up into the world of a nice retail store that sold high-end Scandinavian furniture. I was in charge of putting on craft exhibitions, and doing design talks there. It was a natural growth for me. Soon I had people asking me to do things for them outside of what the retail sales were. And at that point, I just didn't feel comfortable spending time paid where I was under my retail stores watch. Stepping outside and using that to help retail clients with other things that had nothing to do with the store. So I leaped, found a part-time job selling coach for clothing at a local department store, that I could get full benefits for working 20 hours a week. I mean, that was a different era, right? And then I thought, "Well, I can do this". So I started my business as a consulting, design consulting mostly because I wanted to be paid for my ideas. I did not want my income to be connected to selling stuff that somebody didn't need. I always wanted it to be about creativity, ideas, resourcefulness, definitely buying quality products and knowing how to use them well. Sometimes I could make a difference in somebody's home just by telling them to move something or to recover something as opposed to selling. So for me, the whole profitability sort of definition that you talked about that profitability isn't necessarily financial. At that point in my life, I did not have a profitability plan for sure. I just felt that having the freedom to be paid for my creativity was hugely profitable, for me, at least in my understanding of what business would be at that point in my life.
Michele (10:18) Okay. And so when you started doing that, did you find that you were making money at your creativity? Or did you find that you were offering a whole lot more creativity than you were maybe charging for?
Brita (10:32) Oh, for sure. The latter of the two, a whole lot more creativity. And I wasn't ready to feel like I could charge for every hour or that I could assume that... Who was it to say that you could have this $8,000 sofa for, $2,000 or whatever, It just wasn't part of who I was at the time to understand that I had a right or, there wasn't any problem with making money.
Michele (11:01) Right. It's been so interesting you brought up one point of it. I remember speaking to someone recently who told me their partner thought that they should not make a profit in their business. That was being, I guess, unfair or maybe it was being too capitalistic. And I pushed back on that idea. I mean, I'm not talking about, capitalism runs amok, where we're making 7 million and we're not paying anybody, that's a different conversation. But we are in business to make a salary and to make a profit. And the profit separate from us being paid fairly for our time working in that business is for the risk that we're taking and for all these other things that we're doing. So when you couple this idea of maybe I don't deserve a profit or shouldn't make a profit with this secondary idea of starving artists or if you're in an artist and you've sold out I'm putting in air quotes to capitalism, then you're not an artist, you're now... But at the same time, don't we want to make millions for our paintings as Monet did?
Brita (12:11) Oh, yes.
Michele (12:12)
I don't currently have a Monet, right? He probably didn't make it. But now his work does. But don't we want that. And yet we're limiting ourselves on how we do it. And it's like, we have these ideas that everything is pigeonhole to the left or the right.
Brita (12:29) Right.
Michele (12:29) Versus It is okay. I can't even tell you many times I go, I permit you to make a profit. I write permission to charge what you're worth. I do permit you. And it's not that they necessarily need my permission, but they need to know that in the context of fair business practices. It's okay.
Brita (12:48) Yeah. And the people that I work for, would expect it too. I love my clients. They love what I can do for them, and I've never any indication from them that it should be otherwise. So I had to be released.
Michele (13:06) It's an internal thing.
Brita (13:07) Oh definitely.
Michele (13:08) And don't think clients who love you, who want your business to be sustained so that you'll be there the next time they call. They would be horrified, I think in many cases if they knew how little we made, to what we do. How little we were charging. How we were undercutting our hours. How we were doing all these self-sabotaging types of things, that was putting our business at risk so that we couldn't serve them. None of them would work that way. And I don't think if it were narrow down that tightly, they would want us to do that either. If they're really our ideal, great clients.
Brita (13:47) Definitely not. And it is that piece of self-sabotage for sure. But it was also a matter of knowledge and because even in a good liberal arts education with an art major, I did not learn anything about business, anything. The only thing I knew about business was being on a retail sales floor and selling something fun. I love doing that. I loved when I had to try to figure out what a client needed or a customer I should say at that point was great fun for me. And I got to sell beautiful things. And it was very satisfying, but to know every other piece of the business that really required a lot of education. And the nice thing about having done business the way I was able to do it, I started my business. And within a couple of years, I was married and within a couple more years later we have started a family. I have three sons that are all grown now, but during that time I was raising them. My business was that little part of me that didn't have to do with mothering. Being a mom as you know, your time almost seems like it's never your own. And be able to have a part-time business. I didn't have to market. It was word of mouth, I had fantastic projects. But I always have a little piece of me. And that was another kind of profitability center for me, it was the freedom to keep that piece of me during those heavy years of parenting. And so that was really part of the business I value. And over that broad arc of time, it was a very slow learning curve, but I was able to digest a lot of great life lessons, a lot of business lessons, and make fantastic contacts with people. We have a design center in Minneapolis. That is wonderful. I have long term relationships with showrooms there. So it all got to grow very naturally, which was good for me.
After my boys were off to college and out of the house, I intended to always say, okay, it's my turn. Now I really want to develop my business and market it. And that was the point at which it was not only this self-sabotage sort of message that would linger in the back of my psyche, but it was also the fact that I realized I need more business skills period, to really be able to structure something and market it, and hence my call out for help.
Michele (16:14) What other struggles do you think that you had in the business part of that? So we have this idea that artistry shouldn't be a business. We have, and I'm not saying any of these are right or wrong, they just were a belief system that informed the way that we made choices. We had this idea of, I don't know how to do business or I don't know that I can charge for it or even I'm paid by the delight on their faces and not necessarily in the hours of time. But I can let that go because I have the freedom to be an artist and yes to be paid in this idea of freedom.
Brita (16:51) True.
Michele (16:53) Right? But I know you also had a couple of other challenges one being ADHD and figuring out how that impacted your business. And we'll talk about that in a second. But did you find any other struggles that you had other than, like lack of business understanding in general?
Brita (17:10) Well, in my business understanding, that was the idea of marketing for the most part.
Michele (17:15) Okay.
Brita (17:16) I did have an accountant at one point, I now have a bookkeeper. So I didn't have to spend all this time trying to pull together records and know how to do record keeping. I really lacked confidence and doing that the right way, even though I didn't know what the right way was, because nobody really told me. I was very careful about bank accounts and things like that, especially when you're using somebody else's money, you want to be sure that you know you're responsible for it. But it was that it was also this fear that because I had not been to design school specifically, that I was somehow outside the industry. I'm very used to being outside the box. I tend to get very bored with trends. I want to create something new every time.
My whole creative spirit really doesn't live very well in systems and processes. And that's part of that, as we discussed before, it's my superpower. I'm always designing new things. And that's where my delight comes from working with people as my delight. Finding those boring things that you have to do to run a business was never what I wanted. But at the same time, I really wanted to be a professional. I wanted to have beautiful invoices. I wanted to always understand how to do presentations, and I felt like those types of things may have been part of a design school education that I didn't get. And that was kind of anxiety in me, who was I to think that I could just make this up. It's that imposter syndrome.
Michele (18:55) Yeah, yeah, that happens a lot. We see that show-up. You had quite a few things in your mindset.
Brita (19:04) Oh, yeah.
Michele (19:04) Right, that needed some adjusting. And I know we spent a lot of time, when you came to me with your Understanding Your Financials and hey, talk to me. I think you were kind of shocked at first when I was like, okay, we're not going right to the financials. We're going to use those.
Brita (19:19) Right.
Michele (19:19) We are going over here to mindset.
Brita (19:20) Oh, yeah.
Michele (19:21) Because you pushed back a little bit.
Brita (19:22) I'm sure I did. Yeah.
Michele (19:24) You pushed back and not in a bad way. I mean, you were always super respectful. You're a super kind person. But I remember also when you originally reached out, you led with the fact that I'm ADHD and I embrace things with a struggle. I'm ADHD, and I can't do these things. I'm ADHD and I don't fit. I remember us having a lot of conversations, I told you, I said,"Hold on, I got Peter Shankman coming on". On the podcast, remember, because at the key came in not long after that. I was like, listen to that his book is faster than normal, and I'll put that link. Then we started talking about it. And I love how and now we're a year out. And yes, you have an ADHD mind, which many many creatives have. I can't even tell you the number of designers and workrooms and others that I work with that is creative, that is a part of, as you say, their neurological makeup. But we also know that that is the superpower.
Brita (19:24) Yeah.
Michele (19:35) I've shared before, my sons are dyslexic, as is my husband, and it's their superpower. And I wouldn't change it for the world. Because I'm not dyslexic. And so I see the world one way and instead of looking at that, as a disability, I look at it as a super ability. Because I always giggle and go, my family doesn't have a box outside of me. They don't have a box. They don't even know where the box is. I can remember my youngest one is going, "Mom, what box "? I'll say, "Dang, that would be nice to go through life with no box". Right? So then we can stop and look at the gifts. There's a whole book called The gift of dyslexia. If we were to look at the gift of ADD and ADHD, right? Instead of the challenge of it, or the difficulty in it. I'm not, discounting that that is there. But when we shift our mindset to go, oh, but what does it do for me? Tell me in this last year Brita, how you have looked at your ADHD as a gift, and how you have been able to harness it as a superpower. I can promise you there are listeners right now that are on the edge of their seats going, Please tell me how you did that. Just give me... drop some breadcrumbs sister because I need to go there. So let's drop a few breadcrumbs and I'll by saying part of it was... At least from my standpoint, right? So we each have our different views.
Brita (21:50) Right?
Michele (21:50) But you came to me and it became the topic of a lot of our conversations at a very, very beginning. It kept showing up as this limiting belief for you that I can't do it because of, I can't just because of, I can't fit because of and I remember going stop.
Brita (22:06) Yes. yes.
Michele (22:08) I'm not disagreeing that you have it I'm not disagreeing with the challenge. But why did you feel like... I remember going, "Brita you don't have to have the business everybody else has. Quit trying to force their process into your life. Let's create a process that works for you". I learned that early on trying to educate my dyslexic. I'm a very organized, process-driven person. That's my whole degree from college. It is natural for me. I just worked that way. My husband has the same degree and is dyslexic, I can promise you he does not organize anything like me. And when I tried to put my system on top of my child, I stressed out.
Brita (22:20) Yeah.
Michele (22:43) So instead we sat back and said he organized by color. He recognized by color in middle school. Like blue is this, black is this, green is this, red is this, which subject... Carried it all the way through.
Brita (23:07) Right.
Michele (23:07) I'm over here organizing by content. He's like, "I can't do that". And so literally kind of releasing the reins on here is a process that you must follow, that's the box. And that was the box that you and I spent probably the first few months tearing down. And I don't think you knew that you had the right to tear the box down.
Brita (23:29) I had no clue that was possible. I just didn't, I mean, even though I had been providing design services for so long, and people were happy with what I did for them. I still was holding on to that box for sure.
Michele (23:46) It makes you feel less than, because if you don't feel like you can do what you're supposed to do within these confines and constraints...
Brita (23:53) Right.
Michele (23:53) It was now a diminisher for you as opposed to supporting and help for you.
Brita (23:58) Right. Right. Like you, I have sons. I have three sons and I married my opposite, which is absolutely wonderful. We're very Yin and Yang, and he's a very time management type of super organized guy. And I'm his creative counterpart, so we were very aware of our differences in that way. And our three sons, all of them are more bell curve types. And I think that when you raise kids that are not in the middle, or inside the box, you might say, you learn a lot about them. You become their champions and you want to support them and because you see the brilliance that they have, even though it's completely outside what the norm is, and then you realize, Oh, you mean it, that's really okay. And you can start mothering yourself in a way of being your own champion. I guess that that's one thing.
Michele (24:52) Can we stop right there for a minute, because I do remember you sharing with me about your sons and really sharing about their brilliance? They're on that like you said, the ends of the bell curve, not in that box, like mine aren't in the box either. And you just kept talking about the beauty of their creativity and the beauty of what they did. And I remember saying to you, "But Brita why would you not let yourself be like that"? You talk about mothering yourself. If I can recognize this beauty and this awesomeness in other people who are outside of the center of the bell curve if I'm outside of the center of that curve, why can't I see the same awesomeness in me?
Brita (25:32) Yeah, and even though people that are closest to you who have always love to that way, it took a lot of courage to step out of that. And then go Oh, yeah, we can do this. I need help. I think I just told you, I started. I hired an admin person. Just part-time. It was a perfect situation for her and me, and I've reached out for help a lot in the past, mostly from my extremely talented family who is it techie or, there's my oldest son is an accountant. I've got a digital marketing specialist and my middle guy and graphics, video design kind of specialist and my youngest guy so that I might as well pull from all of my family. But then when you don't rely on your family, it feels like you're grown up. There's something about doing it for yourself, hiring the help that you need. So this admin person I hired is great. She's really helping me move some things along that I knew I had to do. The other piece of it that I remember discussing is the Strengths Finder, which is again, it appears a lot in your podcast.
Michele (26:41) Yes.
Brita (26:44) I had already done the Strengths Finder and my number one was strategic, which totally blew me out of the water because I never thought I could be strategic. To have even a test that kind of outside information and objectivity put on who you are, and then sort of let that sit for a while. They go a little how does that? What does that mean? How is it that I am really strategic and then you begin to understand yourself a little bit better, too.
Michele (27:14) I remember you saying to me at the beginning, "This amount of introspection is painful for me". You've done a lot already. But I was asking you to do even more. And I think that's so funny. Not funny. Ironic. I don't know what the word is... right. But quite often people will come to me, they either want to financially grow... You weren't in financial distress.
Brita (27:43) No.
Michele (27:45) You were wanting to scale and grow.
Brita ( 27:47) Right.
Michele (27:47) And so I get that all the time. And I go," Okay, let's talk about you". You were like, "I don't want to talk about me, help me talk about how to grow" And I'm like, "We have to talk about you to grow". And I do remember quite a few emails and then when you got into the groove, you just started sharing, everything. You just started putting it out there. I remember saying, "Please, if you will just trust me. If we do this work, I will show you how it all fits". And so by doing the Strengths Finder, by doing the why, and I mean really us direct why, getting past all the surface answers of Why.
Brita (28:23) Yes.
Michele (28:23) Sitting down to that deep root on that deep belief system of why you get up every day. What is it that informs the way that you see the world, right? That's why when you get down to that, what I remember it doing is when I said to you after that, "Brita, you don't have to have the business everybody else has. I don't care if every other designer is doing a, b and c."
Brita (28:49) Yeah.
Michele (28:49) You find joy in going in and doing x and y. Then by Gosh, let's build a business of X and Y some people need that. And you said, "I can do that"? And I said, "You can do that".
Brita (29:03) Yes, that was very liberating because I had kind of already done that in my little closet way. In the way, I've been serving people over the years. That was how I showed up on their doorsteps to kind of just to help them through their design issues was really what I was naturally passionate about doing. And I didn't think it was legitimate. I really thought that that was like would not be seen as a business that was real.
Michele (29:30) Real design. And that fed the imposter piece, right.
Brita (29:34) Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah, right.
Michele (29:37) And I remember saying, "Let's let go with that construct. What if you got to work within your superpower which is art meets design", what if after... You kept defining what you loved and it was not normal...
Brita (29:54) No.
Michele (29:55) Aka... go in. I want a blank room. I want to decide from that consult... you kept saying, "I want this to be a process over time, I want to go in and layer. I want to go in and talk about color. And I want to talk about a piece of art and then let it inform the space". And it was just a different approach...
Brita (30:15) Completely. Yeah.
Michele (30:17) But you didn't think at the time that it was acceptable.
Brita (30:22) An industry-standard like I wanted to be a professional that was so important to me. But it didn't feel like it was that professional industry standard in the way I was delivering my services, or at least how I was doing it. I didn't know exactly how to put that. But there was that huge imposter syndrome that was lurking in the background. And because of that, you start doing that self-sabotage thing where you won't charge for all your time or you don't charge enough. You kind of might find that there was a little bit of conflict so you just ate it, you know, instead of dealing with it.
Michele (30:59) And it also leads to, if not dealt with, right? And I mean, not only the imposter syndrome but this idea that I can't work in a way that I am passionate about or that I was, in my mind that God created me to see the world. I mean, he gave you the superpower outside of the bell curve...
Brita (31:16) Right.
Michele (31:17) Not for you to diminish, but for you to exploit.
Brita (31:20) Right.
Michele (31:20) How do we use it? And I remember saying to you, "What if we could really marry all these things? Because everything you're saying to me looks like that's what you want to do".
Brita (31:30) Right.
Michele (31:31) Anytime you were taking this ideal interior design business construct. You kept feeling like your hands were tied.
Brita (31:39) Right.
Michele (31:40) You kept telling me you didn't feel passionate about it. Those weren't the jobs you loved. You could do them, you could do them well, but they were not the ones that they say spark joy for you.
Brita (31:50) Right, Right. Right. And you have to work with that joy. I mean, For anybody. It's really fun to work with somebody or to hire somebody who is really passionate about authentically passionate about why they do what they do. And I don't care, if it's a person who trims trees or polishes cars or does software design. I love how people are excited about what they do. And I find it very painful when somebody isn't excited about what they do. And I knew what excited me and what I could see my client's eyes light up when I would be working with them. I just didn't know that that was okay to call it business.
Michele (32:37) Yeah. Okay. So when we learned and work together that it was okay to call it business. And then what we're going to do, right, because we didn't just let this idea of here's how I'm going to mix art and design the business. We still bring business principles around it. Here's how you do it. And here's how you make money at it. And here's how you describe it and message it and this is who the ideal client is and We still went through all of the work.
Brita (33:01) Right? Right.
Michele (33:02) But it was a mental shift to go, I can call this business-like, I can be creative enough and out of blocks enough to make this a business.
Brita (33:11) Exactly.
Michele (33:11) Then you started owning that. Brita your business morphed and changed when you came into your own that you could mix the artistry with design. Tell us what has happened in your business over the last six months with that new understanding.
Brita (33:28) Well, one thing that you helped me with is embracing this idea that you don't give things up for free. And I've heard so many designers talk about this sort of meet and greet call where they have this initial consultation this kind of get to know each other and size up the job and you get a lot of good information there and they're going to like you, right? So then they're going to hire you. I found that what I could provide in those first few hours and working with somebody was the meat of my business. I can come up with so many ideas. I love talking about design. I love analyzing problems and coming up with solutions on the spot. And I found that that was so valuable and you permitted me to charge for that. So we've talked about a process where that first consultation would be, in my mind at that point rather expensive. It was you're asking me to charge a lot more for that than I was comfortable charging, but also pointed out the fact that how much time you put into nurturing a client that eventually will hire you for that first consultation.
The next thing that you suggested that while I'm at that consultation, that's also a sales opportunity. Where I can say, "Well, I don't have to be there for the sake of somebody just giving me a full room and expecting full-service design with an entire space". It doesn't have to be that I can create the next stage of services. That is focused on the particular needs of the client. The needs that I identify that original, that first appointment, and then that I can sell services for the end of that appointment that will lead to others. But there, those services will be specific to those needs. It doesn't mean that I have to say, "Well, there you go, you don't have a whole room to give me. I'm out of here". I really like I guess I'm part of my businesses, flexibility, and adaptability of it. I really like to help people in all sorts of ways. And it doesn't always lead to full-service design, over time can lead people through design. I've worked with, or I might have been called in to help them with something they just didn't understand. Or even how am I going to arrange the art and my wall or I need to pick out the color of the carpet, and I can't seem to find the right company. But through that and that relationship that we develop beginning with that initial design consultation, to earn trust, they see your ideas. And then it's a great sales tool to see other work down the road. And eventually, those projects become full-service design.
Michele (36:12) So right. I remember during that process you had an original art.
Brita (36:19) Oh, yes, Yeah.
Michele (36:21) And installation that you've now had. What it did was it freed you up to serve your ideal client the way you wanted to serve them. And what they needed and wanted to be served. Yes. Be moved to this idea that you needed to oversell them. And I'm not suggesting anybody goes in the...
Brita (36:38) Of course, of course.
Michele (36:40) But when you go in with this subliminal message that the only way to really do design is to do this.
Brita (36:45) Exactly. Yeah.
Michele (36:47) Just naturally without even trying.
Brita (36:50) Right.
Michele (36:50) So that we found that for you, the biggest thing was creativity. Remove some of the boundaries. We don't identify who your ideal client is, because you still have a very narrow ideal client, in some ways, right? It's not like you're open for anybody that calls and just wants one piece of art, that's still not the right match for you. So we had to narrow in because part of your superpower is going in and seeing issues that they may not even see.
Brita (37:22) Right.
Michele (37:23) Like, they may bring you in thinking they need a piece of art, yet you notice that the furniture is not arranged correctly, or that the color on the wall is not going to work. Do you know what I mean? There are so many layers to it. And if you like being able to go in with the freedom of we're not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the room. But I am going to go further than what you think you are telling me.
Brita (37:47) Right.
Michele (37:48) Right. Unless that's really all that you need. And then that's all that I'm going to give you.
Brita (37:53) Right.
Michele (37:53) That frees you up to work within that and if they want to do the whole room. I remember you saying to me, "I like to do it in stages and layers." I work and think and layers. Not like me go in and design the whole thing and walk away. That wasn't necessarily the most comfortable approach for you.
Brita (38:12) Right.
Michele (38:12) You were a bit more layered, right? And how you saw the space. So it just freed you up even in full-blown empty space design, to do in a very authentic way, to the way that you process information and color and value and all those other things.
Brita (38:28) Yeah, Yeah. And part of it as well as that I really like high-quality pieces and art and things that will resonate with the person that owns them for a long time. I mean, I love you the materials that find materials and construction and craftsmanship. What I grew up with, it was just part of my language, and do all of that at once can really be limiting for many people and I am so willing To do just part of a project so that people can afford and stage their investments over time and live more fully with a better quality environment. That's really what I'm going for, and working with them. And so I think designers are often seen as, controlling or all at once or and those are views the world has, I think it's changing now I think the industry is changing so much. But I love opportunities to make a difference in small ways and but find that those differences are powerful ones, even if it's just figuring out a coat closet or a way to feed the cat in the kitchen, how do you design all these features that make people's lives function better and makes them feel better to do so.
Michele (39:55) Let me asked you this Brita ...How have you seen your confidence shift and change since the time that you have started not only embracing who you were created, and the way that you want to work and that feels natural, but also putting it into practice because I know the first few times were scary.
Brita (40:12) Yes.
Michele (40:13) I said do it anyway.
Brita (40:14) Yeah. Anyway, Yeah.
Michele (40:16) Do it anyway, you're prepared. We've done the work, do it anyway. And I remember you coming back and going, they took it like, okay, now I didn't push back, We had this idea that everybody's going to really fight and push back.
Brita (40:29) Yes.
Michele (40:29) As long as we are really well prepared and we do our work properly. We don't often get, I'm not saying we won't sometimes, but we don't often get the pushback that we are anticipating.
Brita (40:40) Right.
Michele (40:40) And so how did your confidence start to grow and to shift once you owned it? Because if you own it, you can sell it?
Brita (40:48) Right, right.
Michele (40:49) That you could now describe it to those ideal clients in such a way that they're like, I can't live without that. They said yes. And how was that morphed your business even further?
Brita (41:01) Well, I've gotten much better at anticipating where I might get thrown under the bus, as far as being able to give people so many ideas all the time. And developing a process that fit how I wanted to work, gave me confidence and it created a much easier way of selling my services. It's so much easier for me now to say, well, I've got a process for this, and this is the first stage, then this is the second stage. And I just totally own it and it fits my priorities and for design, the way I do business, what I value the most, and I can talk about it and talk about it confidently. Rather than feel it without a process. I was always vulnerable to the self-sabotage idea of well, I just gave them the free hour. That's fine. It was only an hour of my time and that isn't really it doesn't say embrace the full value with what you just gave them somebody.
Michele (42:02) Right. Anything I think it does. When we understand how we want to work. And we've done this deep work that you've done over the year, right? Or over some time, not only does it give us the confidence to stand up and to describe it, but it gives us confidence when we get pushed back on our own process. Because then we know that the process we've created is the one that allows us to really focus on and be deliberate on getting the outcome that you and the client both want. You don't have to stop and think about how I am going to do this? Or how do I be a chameleon at this moment and make my business who they think it should be or who they want it to be?
Brita (42:46) Yeah, exactly.
Michele (42:47) I use the example a lot if you're going to be if your business is a pizza restaurant and you sell pizza, sell pizza, don't show up and try to sell Chinese because that's what they want. Send them down the street.
Brita (42:57) Right? Right.
Michele (42:58) Be who you are. Offering what you have. And then do it really... be like the best pizza joint in town?
Brita (43:04) Right? Right?
Michele (43:05) If you're a pizza joint focused on pizza, and all of a sudden, you're changing that you sell Chinese to this person, and you sell Indian over here and burgers over here. Like, you're never going to be the best pizza joint.
Brita (43:17) No, no, no.
Michele (43:19) We've got to quit screwing up our menu of services, to make other people happy. And I think by making yourself happy and satisfied and passionate, it allows you to actually meet the needs of your clients and a better and a deeper way to ultimately make those ideal people happier.
Brita (43:37) Right. And also, it gives you the confidence to refer too. And not put yourself in a position that you don't want to be in. I love the idea of being able to be valuable to a client because I knew was the right person to reassure them too. I mean that I know there's a lot of reasons that they come to me because I have somebody that will do this or that or be part of a whole team. I like to think a lot of ways, I think of myself as the third leg of the stool for some clients on every job that I do, but a lot of clients will have their own contractors or their handyman or, their own resources, but they just can't make sense of things. So I get to be that third leg of the stool to get the confidence, to be collaborative and move a project forward with them. So that whole collaboration piece, I think is so important.
Michele (44:28) I was just going to say that same word, collaboration.
Brita (44:32) Yeah. And when you know who you are, and put the services you can provide, it makes it easy to refer people, to say this is what I bring to the table, this is what I don't do, and the light and the talents of other people and the businesses that other people provide. So that's the real joy to me.
Michele (44:52) And I think that also makes you very trustworthy. Then when you're not I mean, I'm not saying we don't all have an opportunity to stretch our skillset and stretch our businesses. But to put ourselves in a position to do something that we don't want to do to make somebody else happy just to be right users, that doesn't usually turn out well. It rarely turns out well, unless it's an area where you already wanted to grow or this on your educational plan or that you are excited about that growth.
Brita (45:20) Right.
Michele (45:21) And so we do really need to stop and think about that. And so, I love how owning what you do well also allows you to let others own what they do well.
Brita (45:30) Definitely.
Michele (45:31) And to see the synergistic opportunities between the two of you.
Brita (45:34) Right.
Michele (45:36) That's awesome. So what is one of your next big profit goals in your business?
Brita (45:42) Well, following my plan, my processes. I'm launching my newly branded business that was the last coaching call I had the two last April. I needed to rebrand and so that was another deep dive into all sorts of processes and understanding how to do that and getting help. I've been intentionally not busy. So I could do that work. I've been lucky that I've been able to invest that time to do it. But now I'm facing the year of all newness and a kind of re described business that I'm excited about. And I really want to capture my time, I really, really want to be able to say yes, My time is so important. And I'm not wasting other people's time, I'm not wasting my time. We are putting a value on it. And that is driving my business. So we find pieces one by following systems and processes. And the other is I really want to start writing. I know blogging is a big deal and it can really drive your business. But it's something that I want to position myself to do. I love talking about issues about design and sustainability, quality craft. I really think there's no lack of voices right now for supporting the industry and because of the changes in everything being available on the internet. Just the way design is marketed these days. I feel like that's a really important piece of what I have to offer. Even though I may not be capturing an audience of people that will be eventual clients, I want that part of myself to be expressed.
Also, the other piece and a lot of this goes back to about the beginning of last year, one of the little exercises I did... I don't think it was with you, but if everything were perfect, and you had exactly what you want, what would that be? I began to imagine a place to work, where I would have a messy art studio, on one end, a really clean beautifully professional interior design office on the other end, and in between was going to be a social space. Where I could have conversations, groups, gallery shows, meetings with clients. I mean, it was like that would be my ideal space. I think somebody had this idea of a digital destination. And I realized, Oh, that's what I need. Rather than having the actual solid studio space, which I think would be a bit much for me to handle, such a large building, of course. With that I can nurture my art, I can nurture my design business. And I can nurture that space that coming together. That coming together space in between is what I want to write about. I'm excited to be moving into three different areas of my business, understanding why they're all important to me, and having systems and processes that allow me to be profitable or have the actual business to be in them. So that's what I'm excited about. And we'll see how profitable it is. I don't have so much of a drive a lot of monetary profit or think that way, but it's what happens when I got my passions out there. I had the best year I'd ever had just the year before I started to do the coaching with you. And so I'm really excited about picking up and seeing where everything goes.
Michele (49:14) That's awesome. So you know, you don't have to always watch the money every moment. I know that'll be shocking to my listeners. Put a plan in place that allows you to be profitable. like that, You still inspect it right? But then what happens is you can let it ride a little bit. You're not having to check every last right I dot and T cross all the time. If you set it up, it's when you set it up poorly. And you do more of it. You don't make it up in your pricing.
Brita (49:48) And I never understood how much not having that was stress in and of itself and which is creativity. So it's wonderful to have a sense of having those structures and having those ideas and that plan. And it's like, Yeah, I don't have to watch it all the time. I don't. It's really my passion. I'm in my zone, which is so important for ADHDers to operate in their zone. And to really understand how, that is really what drives business, to begin with. I don't need to worry about these other things.
Michele (50:25) You've set it up around you to be successful.
Brita (50:27) Exactly.
Michele (50:28) ... be able to focus on what you love to do. Right.
Brita (50:30) Exactly.
Michele (50:31) So Brita, tell us what your new website is.
Brita (50:34) It is called Artistry Interior Design. And on that website, it is focused on consulting services, meeting people where they are helping them navigate the internet. What I found is that even with all the resources out there for people, and everybody used to come with their Architectural Digest, or magazine pages pulled out to show you and now everyone's The idea books, Pinterest, everything it has....for some people, that's all they need, and they can execute a project beautifully, without help. But for so many people, it has caused such stress and anxiety. And then you have wonderful HGTV shows that show you how everything was done. And then people leave feeling like well, I still can't do that.
Brita (51:24) So the focus of my business is answering those pain points and being willing to meet people at a point where they just need help. And they don't really know if what they want is what they assume a designer does. And so many designers probably work like I do, like they don't have to have the complete project or the whole room or, but my process is very geared toward providing different levels of service and helping people weed out their frustrations and their anxieties about their visual life. And I love doing that. It was just so much fun. So that's artistry is going to be focused on consulting services. And that meeting people where they are on the journey. I know we talked about that as being good. I think at one point you described that "Oh, well, so you're like the trip director". People want to take a trip, and they want to go to very interesting places. They just don't know how to get there. And they want someone to hold the map. So I found that to be a good analogy, and definitely what I do. So that's how I'm approaching my Artistry Interior Design.
Michele (52:36) Awesome. And so your website is ArtistryID.com correct?
Brita 52:41 Mmmhmm
Michele (52:42) Perfect. And so we will make sure we put links in the show notes to you for you, Instagram, Facebook, website, wherever you're hanging out. We'll make sure they're there to find you.
Brita (52:51) Great.
Michele (52:53) So Brita, thank you so much for sharing, we're talking about your journey for your superpower of ADHD, for letting go of the idea that your business needs to look like everybody else's. And instead of embracing what you do well and what you love, and then finding a way to make money at that. That's what makes it fun.
Brita (53:14) Yes. And thank you so much for being on my team. I just consider it a blessing.
Michele (53:20) You are welcome. Well, I'm always here you know that. I've enjoyed working with you and enjoyed watching you discover. I think that's one of my most favorite things with the clients that I work with, is being able to listen to them, share with them, challenge the thinking, and then sit back and watch them discover and put what they learned into action to really have the business they want.
Brita (53:44) Yes.
Michele (53:45) So it's fun to watch and to see and it makes me so proud to see that you've done such a great job.
Brita (53:50) Thank you. Thank you. It's been a joy, a difficult journey, and a joy.
Michele (53:55) And a joy. That's right. That's right because it's not always easy is it?
Brita (53:58) No, it isn't,
Michele (53:59) It's not always easy but it is a choice.
Brita (54:01) Yes, it is.
Michele (54:02) It is and you're making great ones. So keep it up.
Brita (54:05) Thanks.
Michele (54:06) Have a good day.
Brita (54:07) You too.
Michele (54:08) Bye.
Brita (54:08) Bye.
Michele (54:09) Thank you, Brita, for your insight and for sharing your journey with us. I hope that everyone can create a business that works for them and not feel the pressure to offer services or products that they just really don't want to do. The Designers' Inner Circles is exactly what we work through. The same module called the Solid Foundation Builder that Brita work through is the first module in The Designers' Inner Circle. Because knowing who we are and what makes us special, is actually what makes our business special too. So join me over in The Designers' Inner Circle if you want to create a business that works for you. You can find information at ScarletThreadConsulting.com, creating your business leads to profitability, and that doesn't happen by accident.