095: Managing a Design and Social Media Company
Michele (0:01) On the podcast, today are Darla Powell and Natalie Graff of Darla Powell Interiors and Wingnut Social. Together Natalie and Darla manage multiple businesses, a design business, a podcast business, social media, business, firefighting, and family business. And then there's the whole mom, wife, friend part. So we're going to discuss today how they started these businesses, how they don't do it alone, and how they've delegated with a team approach, and how they scheduled time to pull away from the business. We're also going to talk about social media and some of the changes that have been happening and how to get started if you have more time than money. So listen in, take a few hints and I hope you enjoy the podcast.
Michele (1:20) Hey, Darla, hey, Natalie, welcome to the podcast.
Darla (1:25) Hey, Michelle. It's so good to be talking to you again. How are you?
Michele (1:28) I'm doing great. Hey, it's amazing that we're able to have this conversation and I know Darla, you're getting a second bout of the flu. But we've had to reschedule so many times just because of... I don't think I've had any guests that I've had to reschedule.
Darla (1:43) This is all Natalie's fault. Natalie, what's your excuse?
Natalie (1:47) My excuse is Darla.
Michele (1:48) My excuse is Darla. Yeah, so but that's okay because we're here together now and we can have a fun conversation. So I wanted to talk to the two of you for a couple of reasons. One I've been on your podcast. And I still think the funniest thing about that was when you said, "You can come on and talk about financials, but I don't know anything of what it would have to do with marketing." I was like "Oh Darla." I was like, "I don't even know how to break them apart." You don't know how to put them together. And I don't know how to break them apart. That still made me laugh so hard every time I think about it.
Darla (2:20) Right. That was back when we were just focusing only on marketing and not the business as much.
Michele (2:27) That is true. It was a straight marketing focus. And so I was like, trust me, we'll take it there. We had such a good conversation, a good time. So wanting to reciprocate and have you all on here. And one of the things that I want to, I guess kind of dig into today is you have multiple income streams. Like four right off the top of my head.
Darla (2:49) Yeah.
Michele (2:50) And there's a juggling act and I want to dig into that a little bit. We can look at profitability and how the definition of profitability might change based on the different income streams. Also how we're looking at the profitability of your time, right? We're not doesn't always just mean money. We're talking about the profitability of relationships, profitability of time, profitability of networking, all of those things. And so the four businesses at least that I know of you might have more, but here are the four that I know. You have the interior design business, you have Wingnut Social doing social media. You have a podcast, and poor old Natalie has to go to her other job right? Firefighting. So that's four different jobs between the two of you.
Natalie (3:37) Wait, I could add some more. Can I add a couple more?
Michele (3:39) Sure.
Natalie (3:40) So I also work for my family at the farm. So that is one job. Yes, after we get done with this podcast. I am actually headed to the farm to make jelly.
Michele (3:50) Wow.
Natalie (3:51) If you count being a mom. I mean, that's a job right. I have to take care of Darla, that's a job.
Michele (3:58) That's a job.
Natalie (3:59) Yes.
Michele (4:00) And how do you get anything done?
Natalie (4:03) It's very complicated. Because Darla did retire, we do have a little bit of profitability from her retirement that she brings in which helps. So there's...
Darla (4:14) Another income.
Natalie (4:15) Another income.
Michele (4:16) Okay, so how many years have you been doing the design business?
Natalie (4:20) We've been doing the design business, right at almost three years. I think it'll be three years in March.
Darla (4:26) It'll be three years in March.
Michele (4:28) Okay. And then the podcast. I think your podcast came out right before mine did around that same kind of time, right?
Darla (4:35) August of last, not last year. 2018.
Michele (4:38) Okay, because mine was September 18. So I thought we were around the same time. And then Wingnut, when was that?
Natalie (4:45) Two years? Wingnut launched in July of 2018, kind of in the middle of July.
Michele (4:51) Okay. Good gracious. So how do you keep up with all the time? Do you guys have a digital calendar? Do you have a paper calendar or is it just like running here to there? How do you manage time?
Darla (5:01) We just stay under covers, put a pillow over our head and cry a lot. We have Google Calendar.
Michele (5:08) Nice.
Darla (5:09) And that syncs with all the businesses that we have. So we can, we're able to schedule blocks of time for one business, for another business. So hopefully, as long as we keep our calendars synced, and up to date, then we don't have any scheduling problems.
Natalie (5:24) And I put in that calendar often to try to block out my days when I want to go fishing. And that helps keep the balance.
Michele (5:31) I'm glad that you do that. I've been blocking out time lately. Believe it or not, I started a watercolor class. Yeah, so I've wanted to do it for years. And I thought, "What am I waiting for?" And then I listened to Lou Ann's podcast the other day, and she was commenting on it was her 500th episode. And she made the comment about being 52 and going out and doing all these things. It hit me, wow I'm 52 and that's why I thought I'm not waiting anymore. So it was like the same age and kind of that same mindset. I've been blocking out on my Google calendar to be able to go to pilates and to be able to go do a watercolor class, I can't sit, I can't sit into the computer all day every day. And like you, I have multiple kinds of businesses or income streams as well. And so it is a lot, right. And even the designers that are listening in just the amount of work if they just have an extremely busy design firm that can be enough to fill up a calendar. So managing that time resource is huge.
Darla (6:30) Right? I have found that the key to managing that, besides having a calendar. Where you can look and see what everything is going on. What's going down is to delegate a lot of stuff. I have a lead designer on the design side that she just kind of takes charge and she runs 85% of it. Natalie's project manager for that and I have a team on the social media agency side too. With a director, Shana runs that. So I'm pretty clear that I'm the chief visionary officer and the Rainmaker. So that takes a lot of the stress off. The time management is still hairy. But that helps a tremendous amount.
Michele (7:08) So did you start with a team and all of those businesses immediately or did you build them out as you went?
Darla (7:14) On the design side, It started with just Natalie and I. And then about what six months into it, I decided to hire a designer. To help me out with the CAD and the more technical side of it, because I'll be 52 this year, and I wasn't about to learn it. So John has been with us. It'll be three years in October, a two and a half years. On the Wingnut Social site. Absolutely. Because I knew that I could not be hands-on in the nitty-gritty and I would have to have a team. We hired Shana from the get-go. And then now we have a team of four or five. Five, I think with Kyle Sureties our sales manager. So yeah, that helps a tremendous amount. But still, even though you think a lot of that's going to be off your plate. It's still a lot of management. A lot of irons in the fire.
Michele (8:02) Yeah, that then puts you in the role of heavy HR.
Darla (8:06) Oh my gosh, yes. But I love it. I love my team. And I've been very blessed and very lucky to have people who are very competent and good team players. So I think that's a plus, I can't imagine if I had some rotten eggs in there, how much more difficult it could be. But we've gotten lucky from that point. Would you say, Nat?
Natalie (8:23) Yeah, And I think we can stay organized with that time management too. We use Asana and we use Slack. And that that helps out because if we can kind of see where everybody's is at any given point besides Google Calendar.
Michele (8:37) Yeah, those are really good management tools. People ask me all the time, which ones to use. I say, "With the one that makes sense to you and that you're going to use. It doesn't do us any good to have the technology, If we're not ever not using it, right. There's just becomes another payment that we're making and that will not make us profitable. That is for sure. Question for you when you started each of the businesses, the podcast, the Wingnut Social and the design, did you have a profitability plan and a business plan that you wrote out for each one?
Natalie (9:12) That's questionable here. That could be questionable here because when we decided, I guess, collectively that she was going to retire from the police force. We had already sat down with a financial advisor, probably three years previous. And he gave us all those tips of everything that we needed to do. We are fortunate enough at the county jobs to have a deferred call. So we made good use of that. And so when we pulled the plug and she retired, we did have a plan in play. Did we follow that plan? No, it happens. But we always tried to stay as close as we could to what we had envisioned.
Michele (9:55) Okay, and so what about when you did the different projects like, Wingnut and podcast, did you sit down and write out a plan then or did you do it a little more loose?
Darla (10:06) I would love to tell you yeah, we had a plan. We had it all. No, It was very loose. And that's kind of how I learn personally. I kind of have to dive in and learn it before I figure out what it is. That is what I want to do. And now we have our systems and processes and locked down and that can probably stand some revisiting as we go and we mold it to what works, what doesn't work. So that should be in our future. We should have done that. But we've been so busy, we just haven't done it, which I guess is good, but also bad.
Michele (10:38) Yeah, that's a good point. The first business that I started I didn't start with a plan. I didn't start with any plan at all. I started working because somebody rang my doorbell and said, I love what you've done in your home. Would you do it for me? And I just said sure and started working and making money and kind of got caught up in the business of the business before I realized that I was kind of over my head. And that's when I was losing money. And I thought this is not going to work. That was 20 years ago. And that's when I had my epiphany that I couldn't do that. And if I was going to work that hard, I was going to go back to corporate and make money. I wasn't going to do it for free for rich people. So just the truth, right? Yeah. So I backed off and sat down and pivoted and created the plan. And then when I started the coaching business, and then as it's coming forward, and the podcast, every bit of those started with the business plan. Now, to your point, though, if they have been a tweet, I mean, I have to tweak all the time. And I think that's a good point for anybody listening in is, you might come up with a plan, even if it's written on a napkin, even if it's just, here's my ideal client, my ideal product and service at my ideal price. That's a plan, right? That is a plan. Who am I selling to, what am I selling and how am I going to do it?
Darla (11:58) We do have that.
Michele (11:59) But it has to be tweaked. Right. Okay, so you got a loose plan. I like it. But they have to be tweaked.
Natalie (12:05) Well, they do have to be tweaked. And I think that's one thing that we kind of sell ourselves on Wingnut Social is we come up with a strategic plan for social media. And that plan is a living, breathing document ever-changing to the different algorithms. Yes, we have a plan, but we are always tweaking it. So it's not even a plan in a business plan. It's a plan in everyday life. We always have to make that change have to make that tweak and you have to be fluid. It's fluid. Yeah, but you have to accept that you have to don't fight it, go with it and make those changes that work. And I think that's what Darla and I learned is to be flexible and make the changes as we go. I mean, sometimes we are hard-headed and we've made mistakes, but we have taken things away from that and learn from it for sure.
Michele (12:52) I think that's one of the biggest things that I've learned being in business for myself, is that you cannot be rigid. You just cannot be rigid, and you can't do something once and think it's done. There's not as much static, everything's dynamic, right? It's always moving and morphing and changing. And even just my ideas around my business sometimes are moving and morphing. And I think you made a great point earlier, where you commented on being so busy, and it is it's a good and a bad and I think that's true for all of us. The same thing happens when I will say, "Hey, have you checked your finances and done an expense scrub?" Scrub through those expenses. What can I get rid of? What can I cancel that I'm not using? And the answer is usually I'm too busy. And so sometimes we're leaking money and by not going back and revisiting processes and documents and things like that. I mean, I'm guilty of that as well. I try to do it at the end of the year, or the beginning of the year, so around December, January, and then I try to do it again around July, around the mid-year because sometimes there are things I just took my eye off of and wasn't watching. Funny, you find that too?
Darla (13:59) Yeah, I just did that for January. I cut some expenses, some stuff, I wasn't using things I went through and just did like a little internal audit. What expenses are working for us? What advertising is working for us? And saved us ...probably after cutbacks it saves us probably $1,000 a month. Just stupid stuff.
Natalie (14:17) Yeah.
Michele (14:18) It adds up quickly. When you're too busy to think about it, you just leave it in there and pay the bills and move on. And then when you stop and look at it, and you're like, "Oh, here's some money I could make." And that could be a Starbucks or money that comes into the house. So that's a good thing for all of us. Let me ask you this with that same idea of it's not a once and done. How is our social media like that? Because I would love to just put that on autoplay and never touch that again. I don't necessarily love it. I do it because it's a necessary evil if I'm being honest.
Darla (14:53) I know. And that's really how most designers come to us Wingnut Socials. They want it out of their face. They just don't want to deal with it. But the good and bad thing about social media is that it's good for us because we like to call it job security, but it's bad for the end-user is that it's hard to keep up with it's always changing. So at the beginning when a client does sign up for us, and they get that whole strategic plan that Natalie was referring to, it's a fluid living document and adjusts itself. Well, because we adjusted as the times change, the strategy changes, algorithms change. Every month something is changing. So again, job security for us, pain in the butt for you guys.
Michele (15:34) I was gonna ask you how often you're seeing the algorithms and things change because...
Darla (15:39) there's something new every month and remember, we don't just deal with one platform, we deal with all of them. So there's, there's always something in the industry coming at us. This has changed, this is new, you need to do this not do that. So it's a lot. It's a lot to stay on top of. I Love it.
Michele (15:56) I can promise you that would never be a business I'll be opening and starting. You will have no competition from me on that.
Darla (16:05) Awesome.
Michele (16:07) That's not happening. What trends are you seeing right now?
Darla (16:11) Right now video That's been creeping up like crazy but the video by the year 2022 it's predicting to be 83% of all social media content. So that's huge ephemeral content like stories, that you know that live in for 24 hours and then they go to the great social media graveyard. Things that are quick. things are fleeting things that are instant gratification, those are doing well. Tick tock, believe it or not, I don't know if you're familiar with Tick tock, It is doing a big bang explosion. It's growing fast. So it's something I've been recommending for designers just to go in there, maybe not spend a lot of time posting, but go in there and just reserve your account name for your firm or your name. If your name is your brand. It's going to be huge. I absolutely, totally see Tick Tock taking over Instagram and some of the other ones in the in a few years, even two or three years even really huge.
Michele (17:09) It's interesting how you can watch trends. Snapchat had been around for a while and that's the quick take a picture, it goes away. Then that moves over, not quite the same but similar stories.
Darla (17:23) Right.
Michele (17:23) And I don't know, I've gotten to almost now like if I were to just look at my own social media behavior, I go into Instagram and I look through stories. I flip through quickly and I've got my finger on the right hand and my phone and I'm like click, click, click. Then I do like to scroll down a little and then I get off. I’m like I've had enough. That's enough. Which is probably terrible because if somebody's on page three, I missed him.
Darla (17:49) Yeah, that could be and that is the way...
Michele (17:51) Which means I might be missed if I'm on page three.
Darla (17:53) Yeah, that's the way a lot of people are so that's why it's good to have strategies and techniques in place to get you up there at the beginning for your followers to see. I will say this just for the interior designers listening, they might not listen to our podcast, Wingnut Social. For Business, especially the interior design side, we do get a lot of leads from Instagram. We just booked a consultation today from somebody that sent me a DM on Instagram, in a pretty nice area here in Miami where the design firm is. So if you're not doing social media, if you're not posting often, that is money you definitely could be leaving on the table there.
Darla (18:27) I know social media platforms vary, right. I usually tell my clients because everybody's demographic is a little bit different. But where are your people, go be where they are. But I would say that primarily we're still seeing at least my clients are still seeing the majority of their interaction, like live interaction on Instagram and Facebook.
Darla (18:50) Yeah, those are the two main ones that we push. For designers usually depending on what kind of designer you are, where you are, Instagrams can be number one. Pinterest may be really, a super close second, depending on your end goals there. Facebook is still really good for especially for Facebook advertising and for groups. If you're really into groups and my Darla Powell Interiors page, get some pretty good action over there. But for me when we're in Miami, but for me, it's really hard to beat Instagram just for inquiries coming in for the design side. But then again, that's where I really put most of my personal Mojo in on the Instagram side. So if I put as much sweat equity into LinkedIn or Facebook, I could probably be saying the same thing on that side. But it just seems like my demographics and Instagram. It really does. There are so many variables. Some people want to be nationally known. They want to be on HGTV, and then some people just want to get their next-door neighbor to hire them to decorate their house. So it really depends.
Michele (19:51) Yeah, and I mean, I know that you guys probably preach the same kind of thing, but consistency is key. I mean, your presence and staying consistent and then consistency. It's not just in timing, it's in messaging as well.
Darla (20:03) Absolutely. You want to keep your brand voice consistent and you want to post consistently, you don't want to go absent for a long time. Because if you have followers who are looking forward to seeing you, they're going to say, hey, Where'd they go? And then some, maybe even on a subconscious level, they're going to be thinking, I wonder if their business operates as sporadically. I wonder... They want to see and have trust and faith in you like a rock and someone that in the future they can go-to for interior design or whatever businesses.
Michele (20:31) So if somebody is brand new, and they come to you, where do you usually start them out on social media?
Darla (20:38) Everybody with us, starts with a strategy, regardless of whether they're DIY clients, or they come to this full service. We don't just take on a client and start posting for them because we want them to have analytics, we want them to have real ROI. We don't have a template in the material. It's very curated for each client. So it's always going to be that strategy. Where we set it up, it's a five or six-page document curated to that designer. We don't just do designers, but that's mostly my main genre and curated to meet their end goals through social. So, everybody, there's nobody that skips that.
Michele (21:15) How long does that process take?
Darla (21:17) It depends right now there's a little bit of a waiting list because we've gotten some great reviews and it's a stellar strategy. It's really good. I think there's a waiting list right now.
Natalie (21:27) Just a strategy clients that are only they're going to do it themselves Yeah, there's a little bit of a waiting list. If you come as a full-service client, we take the time to work it in. It's usually taken us a solid two weeks. It does take us a few weeks to create that so you know we don't just throw stuff up and say I hope this sticks. I mean, there's a lot of thought, effort, time and research that goes into it.
Natalie (21:53) Yeah.
Darla (21:53) It's pretty impressive. The clients sort of got them back up. And I was like wow, I was just expecting a one size fits all things. They were pretty impressive. What my team can do with those. I'm impressed. I need to get one.
Michele (22:09) You should probably hire your people to do it.
Darla (22:12) I would but they're so busy. I still have to do my own social media. Can you believe that? They don't have time. So yeah...
Michele (22:19) So what are some things we should never do on social platforms? What are you finding? Sometimes it could be something that used to be okay and now it's not okay anymore.
Darla (22:29) Well, unless it's part of your brand and you're okay with polarizing people, stay out of politics. I wouldn't do that. Even Gary Vaynerchuk is polarizing as he can be doesn't get into politics. Stay out of politics. Don't be nasty. If someone has a comment, say don't be snarky, don't be nasty. I think people get turned off by that. Even if it's sarcastically funny, it still has a nasty streak to it. Don't do that. Try to always take the high road with people, especially for Instagram. Try to post on your feed photography that's pretty. Or at least, well, a shot with your iPhone. Don't post ugly pictures. And those would be my three top ones. Nat, you got any more?
Natalie (23:08) No, don't forget stories.
Darla (23:09) What?
Natalie (23:10) Don't forget to do your stories.
Darla (23:11) Oh yeah. And on Instagram, make sure your stories are going pretty much all the time because those are, those are popular. Those help you grow your Instagram account because Instagram just loves it when you use their stories.
Michele (23:23) I always hate it. I'll tell you the thing I don't like anybody to do, don't comment on somebody's picture. That looks great, but I would have done this. Yeah, don't be helpful in public. Be helpful in private. Nobody needs to have that pointed out and it's just so hurtful. I am blown away. The other thing that I would say is don't post somebody else's picture without their permission. Make sure you get everybody's kudos to who the picture is, who the photographer is. Just cover yourself and make sure you know what you're putting out there.
Darla (24:01) Yeah, absolutely. I thought that was such a given. That is a huge no-no. Don't post someone else's work without making them the star of that post. Giving them all the credit, give the photographer credit, if that's listed in the original post, etc, etc. That's really bad.
Michele (24:16) The other thing that has always grated on my nerves and I get sometimes we post other people's work and you know, celebrity crush or design or crash or shout out or great design, whatever. But if your entire feed is everybody else's work and none of your own, that's a problem. That's a problem. Even if you're a brand new designer, go decorate a corner of your house, do a couple of pictures that are your own, Not every single picture should be somebody else's on your feed.
Darla (24:46) I would say I do agree with you. I don't think every picture should be. When you're a new designer, it is really hard to curate your work. And as long as you're crediting them as we said, But to your point, it's not that hard to go to TJ Maxx and take some shots or to do a little corner in your house. But until you get the clients and the portfolio. It can be challenging, you have to be creative.
Michele (25:08) And that's right. Yes. Again, I don't have a problem with the proper way of using other pictures. But I know that if somebody's trying to sell me that they are a designer and I go and cannot find any social proof that they've done any work...
Darla (25:2)3 Yeah.
Michele (25:24) I gotta wonder about that. And so again, You may not be able to do your whole room but you can do a vignette.
Darla (25:29) Or have pictures of yourself, Some nice headshots or Yeah, here I am shopping.
Michele (25:35) Do a flat lay.
Darla (25:37) Yeah, exactly.
Michele (25:38) Do you know there's I guess what I'm saying is there are so many other things that you can do, to fill in the space that is still beautiful, that is still bright, this still eye-catching that, still commands your presence without it looking like you have no personal content. So I would recommend at least a little bit of personal content there as you're going.
Darla (25:58) Yeah, for sure. We definitely agree. On that I one thing I will say though is that when you do share info post you credit them and everything that does help you for your reach, to get new followers. It also helps the person that you're posting for their reach to get new followers. So as long as you guys are both on the same page, it's a nice little winning proposition.
Michele (26:16) And what about tagging pictures properly or you know, putting in your location and putting in your the tags of the vendors or things like that.
Darla (26:26) Yeah, that's super important, because every time that you get someone to like the photo that you've tagged, or you've mentioned in there, then their followers tend to see what they have liked on the Explorer page. So that is a bonus. If you have a vendor. If you have a Korean company, a sponsor of our podcast, thank you. You tagged them, and they like your photo. You're more than likely to show up on their followers' explorer page on Instagram. So that's a terrific strategy.
Michele (26:55) And honestly, I think that the rules apply. If a vendor pulls your picture and posts it, they should be giving you credit for that picture and your photographer's credit as well.
Natalie (27:07) Right.Absolutely.
Michele (27:08) They should because I've seen a couple where they got pulled and the original person didn't get credit for it. So that shouldn't happen. The same way that we give credit for every single thing that we're posting. If somebody uses your picture everything should be given as credit.
Darla (27:23) Absolutely.
Michele (27:25) And still, I think we have to be careful around all the sharing. You talked to the lawyers, they'll tell you to be very careful. Just if in doubt, credit everybody.
Michele (27:34) Yeah.
Darla (27:35) Credit everybody. Credit to help say, Dellair machete, look at what an amazing job they did on this bathroom, it's killer, just make it about them. Don't just do a narrative and then at the bottom design with Dellair machete, Make them part of the narrative, sing their praises.
Michele (27:49) That's exactly right. So how do you all put some boundaries around all these income streams and work and all of that? How do you do that and then still be able to manage to have a home life and family life and personal time?
Darla (28:06) Natalie this one's yours
Natalie (28:07) Oh, why do I get the hard one, Michele? It took us a hot minute to figure that out. Yeah, that is still ever-changing. But we started scheduling. I will take it on our calendar. And when I get our daughter's soccer schedule, all her games go on the calendar and people just have to work around that. So we just put it on the calendar. If I want to go to lunch one day or two breakfasts, I throw it on the calendar. If I want to go fishing, I throw it on the calendar. And I'm not saying that's like in stone and has to be. I just unblocked my calendar I think for next week because we had so much work pressing I said, "You know what, let me just unblock my calendar," because I needed that day. But we need to do something, we've learned to take the time to go do that and be spontaneous. Like the other day after podcasting all day on Tuesday, I'm like, come on, "We're going to dinner," and we went out to dinner. It's just ever-changing. It's a learning curve.
Darla (29:15) We're still learning.
Michele (29:16) It's a struggle, isn't it?
Natalie (29:17) It's a struggle. It's a struggle and shut it off. You have to learn to shut it off. I think that's our biggest thing is shutting it off at night. Don't lay there in bed when you are trying to wind down and go to sleep and still talk about XYZ clients because then you have no peace.
Michele (29:35) Are you working in your home or do you have outside space?
Natalie (29:39) Wingnut Social, everything's remote. Our whole team is just pretty much all over. We do have space outside of our home. I guess you have to walk through the porch. And we have a guest house that we turned into a podcast studio and an office. So we can walk in here and getaway. A lot of times the sofa works well for an office because it is easy. And then we have a virtual office that we do use sometimes to meet design clients if we need to. But a lot of the design clients, we go to their home because we kind of need to see what it is. So we make it all work somehow.
Michele (30:17) Yeah, the reason I asked is that I think that having my podcast studio, my office, my drapery, workroom, whatever it was that I've had inside my home, while it has given me a heck of a lot of freedom. It has also been that thing that you don't get away from. It's always kind of there. And so I've worked with a couple of different clients over the years where we tried to figure out how we could almost have a visual. I interviewed the boys and they were one of the questions that they said and my oldest recognized it. Harrison, he said, now that he works full time he's like, "When I get off work, I have about a 45 minute to an hour drive home, I can decompress, and I can let things go. And I can work out the last things in my head." He said, "Dad always had a drive home from the office and you get to work it out." He said, "But mom, I didn't think about it until I had to do it. You get up and walk out of one room and into the next and you're now supposed to be mom, wife, there was no space for decompression in that." And I thought that was very insightful from him to see that. And I know I'd always felt it. I don't know if I'd put words to it. But it does make a big difference when you work in your home and you have a lot of virtual things. It could go on forever if we don't put some hard stops and hard boundaries around it. So I'm glad to hear that you're doing that and that you're planning in some of the time to breathe, right?
Natalie (31:54) You have to and I think one of our main reasons right now that we're not getting out of our home office space is the overhead. I mean, you have to factor in the overhead of what it would cost for us to get out. And right now, it doesn't make sense. I mean, if we have to come over here and shut the door, we can do that. And I guess we can walk around the yard 10 times and decompress before we walk back in the house. And I'm not sure. But we do. And we'll look at each other and say, "Okay, I need a timeout." Just time out, and no questions asked, we get a timeout.
Michele (32:27) I have a yoga mat and some things like that. And I will after sitting and sitting and sitting because I have two days that I do coaching. And then I have a day of podcasting. And then two days that are business development working on things or helping my clients create things outside of the coaching relationship. And my whole back hurts, my head hurts, my neck hurts. So I have a yoga mat and it's in the middle of my den. And so I'll walk out of the office into the den and just start doing yoga. That's my timeout because I've got to get my brain in a different place, and my body in a different position because I just hurt all the time from sitting. Back to the point about just scheduling in some fun and scheduling in those things and having those boundaries. I'm glad to see you doing that with three or four different businesses. Life's too short to run around all the time. Not that we don't stay focused. I heard somebody say the other day. "I don't mind hustling, but I don't want to do that song everyday. I'm hustlin." Every day, I want it to be a time and then I need to take a break and walk away.
Darla (33:38) Well, Natalie is taking me to Disney World in May for my 52nd birthday so we're gonna block that out.
Michele (33:44) Oh, that sounds like fun. Are you gonna go before all the kids get out of school and join you?
Darla (33:48) Oh, yeah.
Michele (33:49) Yeah, I would go before Memorial Day and then you should be okay.
Darla ( 33:54) Right. So we're gonna block that out. But getting back to having the time and the teams and being able to schedule that time. Natalie and I right now are working on our systems and processes and getting them to such a place where if we are gone for two weeks, we don't have to look at emails. We don't have to go and manage anything day to day. And I think we're pretty close to being at that point. Would you say that?
Natalie (34:19) Yeah, I would say we're working out the last little hiccups and once we get those worked out, we remain where we want to be seen. I'm going to Europe for two weeks.
Darla (34:29) Yeah, me too.
Michele ((34:31) Yeah, there's a great book. I don't know if you've read it by Mike Michalowicz. It's called Clockwork.
Darla (34:36) Yeah.
Michele (34:37) Okay. And it talks about putting systems and processes in place so that you could take a month off. And for many of us who are single business owners or who have you smaller teams or your primary in your business a much harder thing to do. I don't right now need to take four weeks off at a time, but I do take more than four weeks off in a year. And I've built my business to allow me to do that. So that outside of coaching, I don't have to be sitting in front of something with somebody all the time.
Darla (35:10) That's the book you recommended on our podcast. I bought it and that's why we're getting it.
Michele (35:15) Okay.
Darla (35:15) Yeah, I think that's what set me off in this direction.
Michele (35:18) Yeah, it's just so that you can have some freedom in the business, right, so that we're not so tied down. That if you move, we've heard so many people talk about that. And it's true, it's true. But when designers are starting or small businesses are starting, you can't always hire a full team. And not everybody wants to delegate everything. They still want to do some of the stuff, design and, those kinds of pieces. So I say find your joy and then focus on it. I'm assuming that you guys still find joy in all of the aspects of your business.
Natalie (35:55) Yeah, yes. Yes, I do. I get to go to the fire station for my break. So yeah, it's good. I like it.
Darla (36:04) Natalie's kind of in this as a hostage situation, I ain't gonna lie. These are all my ideas and she's just kind of along for the ride. I see her growing in all of them. She's become an amazing project manager and she's become knowledgeable about social media. I wouldn't say it's her passion, they're mine. Yeah, but answering your question truthfully from both of those.
Michele (36:26) So Natalie, if you could start a business that was solely on your passion, but it had something to do with fishing?
Darla (36:32) Her family business?
Natalie (36:33) I don't know. Honestly, I think I would if it would be my passion. I think I would move over to the family business if that's in my cards. I've always loved doing that. I've worked over there ever since I was old enough to learn to count change. So it's kind of in my blood and it runs pretty deep and I think I can almost walk away from everything that I do and go take care of that. But I don't know yet. We'll see how the cards play out.
Darla (37:00) You have to stay on the podcast though.
Natalie (37:03) Yes, I know, I'm a hostage. I know.
Michele (37:05) Darla would have a hard time riffing alone over there.
Darla (37:09) I would she's really fun to riff off of and make fun of.
Michele (37:15) Question for you, as you guys are thinking about moving forward, assuming that you keep all the different pieces and parts that you have now, do you have big plans for the design and big plans for Wingnut and the podcast?
Natalie (37:30) Absolutely. I would call that a retirement plan, is what I would call that.
Natalie (37:35) So yes, that is basically Darla's retirement plan. And to be quite honest, that's what our goal is. I don't want to work till I'm 55. I want to be done at 55. So we'll see. Darla is going to be an old bag, she'll be 65 so you know, it's a retirement plan.
Darla (37:53) Give me that. Now we aren't we do. We have a definite plan, especially for the podcast and Wingnut more so because I think it gets more scalable, right? So we have sponsors for the podcast. The podcast has been growing in popularity. It's been featured in a lot of big industry magazines like Architectural Digest, Designers Today, Business and Home. So yeah, I have big plans for that and doing the speaking gigs. And the design side, it's less scalable, right, because we're local, even though we have started getting some more national projects. So that might be a little slower and coming along, but Wingnut Social Yeah, it's on fire for sure.
Michele (38:28) Darla, how hard was it to talk Natalie into joining you in these ventures?
Darla (38:33) Natalie, how hard was it?
Natalie (38:35) I'm a sucker.
Darla (38:36) No, it took a while.
Darla (38:41) It did. I think I was telling her for two or three years before I retired. I don't want to do the cop thing anymore. It's thankless. It's dangerous. I'm getting too old for this. I'm not happy with it. And it wasn't until I started a side hustle on the design side and Natalie actually could see in front of her face clients coming to me from Facebook. She was like, Oh, I guess she might be serious about this. So it took some time.
Natalie (39:04) Yeah, it did take some time but we work towards that plan. I mean, we kind of knew she was going to retire early anyway. And she was going to do her 20 an hour and I think she made I don't know 18 and a half or something like that. And then she finally went but we had a plan in play for when she did go, it just was a year and a half early.
Darla (39:23) Yeah for sure.
Michele (39:24) So Darla, When did you become interested in design? What sparked that for you?
Darla (39:30) I've been doing it my whole life ever since I was a little kid you know, this sounds very cliche but painting my bedroom rearranging my bedroom every week. I was the kid who was decorating my tree houses with my mother's oil paintings much to her chagrin. And I've been doing it as a side hustle kinda for friends and family my whole life off and on. And even cops that I work with said, "You know, you really should be doing this for a living." I don't know what that means. I thought about my cop skills. I finally just said, "You know, yeah, let's do it." And so the Wingnut Social thing just was accidental because the design side took off so quickly. After all, I happened to be good at marketing on the social media site. Who knew? So I didn't even predict that coming along. And it turns out that I enjoy it. I enjoy it a crazy amount.
Michele (40:21) Yeah, it isn't that funny how you start one thing that you love that you do and then kind of stumble into another. I know that what you do and what I do where I mean, it's different. It's not that we would assume that every single person that is an interior designer would all of a sudden go start a podcast or start a coaching company or a social media company. I will say that has been one of the beautiful things for me being in this industry for 20 years. I started off doing the soft furnishings part of the industry doing window coverings and bedding and just making things. Then working with designers and working with homeowners. Going in as an investor In a school and teaching around the country and speaking, when I did that for years. I then started the coaching practice back in 2013, after I'd been already teaching for probably seven years. And so just knowing that even in design in the industry as a whole, there are so many opportunities to move and to shift and morph into, change what we enjoy doing commercial to residential, we're not stuck. And I think that you have that freedom and flexibility and many industries to be able to move like that.
Natalie (41:41) I think running into burning buildings is a whole lot easier. I mean, that's just my opinion. I had that conversation with our lead designer Johan Amerah this morning. She's like, "You think your firefighting job is easier this?" I'm like, "Oh, absolutely. This is nice. It's simple because I just do my job and I can leave and here there's hand holding that goes along with it." But there's a sense of self-satisfaction, I guess, of being able to help somebody. So not only do I help somebody at work, we help somebody with the design side, and the social media site, We lighten their load.
Michele (42:16) Isn't that important too, because let's talk about this for just a second. You guys again can have a team, but we have a lot of designers that are starting out that don't have a full team. And so just being able to offload pieces and parts right to either hire people to help them with their drawings or with other aspects and then to be able to offload social media, that takes a lot off. It allows them to have a presence, but it allows them to focus on the pieces and parts that they really, feel best about.
Darla (42:45) Yeah, and it's incredibly valuable because like I said, "I still have to do my social media because my team's too busy with clients." It takes me hours and hours a day and my rates are like $200 an hour. So imagine just adding all that up. Yeah, we have a lot of high-end interior designers that are pretty well known. We can't say who they are because it's like the HIPAA law. We call it the SHIPAA law, the social media Privacy Act. But yeah, they're pretty grateful that they don't even have to look at it. They don't want to know about it. They don't want to deal with it. Like here, do it.
Michele (43:19) So if somebody is just getting started with social media marketing, and they can't hire you, they couldn't hire me. They couldn't do it in and do it on their own. Let's give them a little bit of help. So what is something that they could do to get started?
Darla (43:34) Natalie has the answer.
Natalie (43:35) I got the answer to that.
Michele (43:36) All right, you go.
Natalie (43:37) I was just forced into a video for IGTV. And we just posted it today. part of our series for the new year, the new you, It talks all about consistency. I give a little tip on how many times you should post. I will talk about the brand voice. I will talk about all that good stuff. There are three major tips on how to get started with your social. Consistency is totally key and stays true to who you are.
Darla (44:08) Yeah, I get a lot of complaints from designers. "I don't see how you get any clients from social media because I tried it for a month and I didn't get one client." So my biggest tip is to be consistent to not give up. Realize that it is a bit of a long game. People are watching you, they want to see what kind of stick to itism you have, what kind of tenacity. We have clients we just signed up and watching a stocking is really on Instagram for two and a half years. So if you're just posting, perhaps something pretty, don't be afraid to put yourself on your post. Show your clients who they're hiring, what your personalities like, use video, go do the vignettes in your house. If you have a spot in your house, you can do a little makeover, put that out there that suits your aesthetic. If you have a designer that you admire and it suits your aesthetic. Ask them to share their posts, credit them as we discussed earlier and just start Even if it's three or four times a week, Get in there and make sure if someone comments you're engaging with them. It takes a whole hell of a lot of work. But for me in the beginning, I'm DpI had like 8000 followers within six months, just doing all of this relentlessly, hours and hours a day. So it does take a lot of work. But if you have elbow grease, and you don't have a lot of clients hanging on waiting around yet, get in there and just be prepared to work.
Michele (45:25) Yeah, I've always said when we're looking at a marketing budget, within your full financial budget, your time as an expenditure, you need to think about, do you have more time? Or do you have more money? Because if you have more time, you can do some of it yourself for a lower price, right? But if you have more money than time, then that's when you need to start thinking about offloading.
Darla (45:46) So I love that I'm going to steal that.
Michele (45:48) Yeah, I mean, because it's true. If I don't have money, but I've got plenty of time, roll up the sleeves and get to work.
Darla (45:54) Yeah.
Michele (45:56) We talked about that whole... One of the things I love about this podcast is talking about profitability and the fact that it's more than just money. We're certainly here to make money. We're certainly here to be profitable so that we can stay in business, cover our bills and that kind of thing. But what we have to realize is all of these choices, impact that. And so spending my time doing the work when I could easily pay somebody else to do it so that I could go do the next thing to bring money in. That's kind of crazy.
Darla (46:26) Yeah.
Michele (46:27) I just pay somebody to do it, and go out and do what I do best.
Darla (46:32) Yeah.
Michele (46:32) And if I don't have that, it's kind of crazy to go pay somebody lots of money to do it, when you have no money coming in. That bank account is going to go down fast. And so when we all start businesses, we have to be the ones nine times out of 10 to roll up our sleeves and get going until we can start to hand things off.
Darla (46:51) Yeah, absolutely. And if you're the Rainmaker for your design firm or your business, and you have gotten to that point to where you're comfortable to delegate some of your marketing, whether it's us or an intern or a PR firm or whoever it is you choose. Think about how much more money you will make as Rainmaker than sitting in front of your computer trying to figure out the latest change in whatever it is. That's why I hired my first designer because I knew it was more important for me to go out. Show my face. Show my personality, being a Rainmaker and have my lead designer worry about working as chief architect.
Michele (47:23) That's a good point. So question for you to what's one of your next big profit goals in your business?
Darla (47:29) Right now, we just got our first two sponsors for the podcast, we signed a Korean company, we have another one on the horizon. So it's to really just focus on following that social side to focus on me personally, the growth of the podcast and getting out there increasing the listenership and getting the speaking gigs and more sponsorship for the podcast and have that become a vehicle that's profitable just by itself, not just a vehicle for the agency.
Michele (47:57) And what about the design firm?
Darla (47:59) The design firm, I think we're on the precipice of hiring another designer. And I'm really just going to focus on being the head chief mucky-muck there in the Rainmaker and approving the designs, and not really getting in on the nitty-gritty of the designs from the ground floor up and scaling that up a little bit more as well.
Michele (48:17) You got your work cut out for you. What about Wingnut?
Darla (48:20) Wingnut, that's already going we already have our team that's our that's flying.
Michele (48:25) What are your next profit goals there? What are your next big goals?
Darla (48:34) Exponentially hone down our systems and processes to be able to scale efficiently with us and still offer the same amount of curated content and service that we have. So just to build it out and grow the team and bring in as many clients as we can with keeping the same level of service.
Michele (48:52) Right. That's always the challenge, right?
Darla (48:54) It is, yeah, especially when it's something so service-oriented.
Michele (48:59) Right, and that designing? I mean, I hear that all the time.
Darla (49:02) Yeah, it's hard. It's harder to scale that and keep that quality of service there. So that's incredibly important to me. So far, we've been pretty lucky even with a team of five. I think we're pretty blessed with our team. And the service has been pretty good. I don't have any sour apples in there. So hopefully that'll keep going.
Michele (49:20) That's right. That's right. Is there anything else you would like to share?
Darla (49:24) Um, no, just if you haven't heard our podcast if I could show that the Wingnut Social podcast.
Michele (49:29) Yep. And we'll make sure we have a link to that in the show notes as well. So everybody can go over there and listen.
Darla (49:35) Awesome, awesome. Natalie, and I co-host that we have guests and we have our Monday marketing mini potty.
Natalie (49:41) Minisode.
Michele (49:44) I think minisode sounds a little better than mini potty.
Darla (49:47) I know. But I like mini potty. It makes me giggle. And if you guys want to follow us on social at Wingnut Social and all the channels and our websites Wingnutsocial.com. And that's really, that's all I got.
Michele (50:02) That's perfect. Well have all of that in the show notes, so everybody can follow you and check out what you're doing. And I know that you put lots of cool tips out there. And hey, Natalie, if you've got the IGTV since that stays around, it doesn't, go away in the story, give me that link. And I'll make sure we put it in the show notes as well for those that might be starting and need to put a little bit of their own elbow grease in and I'd love to be able to give them that first step to how to do that.
Natalie (50:29) Absolutely. I'll have my secretary Darla send it right over.
Michele (50:34) That sounds great. I'll take it. I'll take it. Well, thank you both so much for working out our schedules multiple times to be able to come on the podcast and to chat with me today. I appreciate it. And then I'm looking forward to seeing how you grow all of your businesses.
Darla (50:49) Thank you so much, Michelle. It's been a pleasure.
Natalie (50:51) Yes, thank you. Sorry, we had to keep rescheduling. I'll make Darla take lots of vitamins. Just playing Darla.
Michele (51:04) Have a great day, guys.
Darla (51:05) Thank you too.
Michele (51:06) Thanks again to Darla and Natalie for joining us today. Having an online presence is so important. It is seriously like the yellow pages of years gone by. Make sure that when you choose to create your online strategy that includes knowing your brand, your offering, and your ideal client, and then be consistent and have fun. If you are an interior design business and you're wanting to reach your big goal this year while also having some time for your friends and your family. And that path ahead seems overwhelming. Reach out and let us help you in the Designers' Inner Circle. We focus on helping you work with ease so you can reclaim your time. You can find more information at ScarletThreadConsulting.com remember, choose to be profitable because it doesn't happen by accident.