115: Managing Business Growth Expectations for Interior Designers
Michele 00:00
Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is A Choice. On the podcast today are Chandler and Jeremy Quarles of Peach and Pine Interiors. They were on the podcast back in Episode 80, where we talked about them building a business together that integrated their family life and their business life. Today, we're going to look at the business challenges they're facing, which is the messy middle. What do I even mean by the messy middle, and why do I call it that? Because this is the place that we're in the most and takes perseverance to actually go through. This is the dash, if you will, between when your business starts and when it'll end up. This is where your business life lived.
Listen in as we look at this place, this messy middle, and create a new perspective and able to celebrate as you climb up the staircase to business mastery. Every day empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design, industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit as A Choice. Hey, Chandler, Hi Jeremy, thanks for joining me on the podcast again.
Chandler Quarles 01:40
Hey, Michele, thanks for having us.
Michele 01:42
Oh, you're so welcome. So on the last podcast episode that we all filmed together, we were talking about your business, your life, how you have chosen to integrate those and to build a business that allowed you both to also raise your son together. At the time, one of you were working while the other in the home, so that you found a way to kind of integrate it all and are working towards that. I'm sure it's been a very interesting integration during COVID. You also had a house move in the middle of all of it.
Chandler Quarles 02:15
Yeah. I just piled it all on. I think the last time we talked was before COVID. As we were prepping to move then, we moved the week before schools shut down here in Tennessee or in our area. So kind of right as COVID started. It has been an interesting year, but it's a very good one and in a lot of ways that work-life integration is being forced on us and honestly, in a good way. Of course, a reset.
Michele 02:49
What was so good about that, though, is you had already been very intentional. We really focused on that last time. You don't want to just try to integrate your home life, your family life, your business life, and hoping that it works out. You have been very intentional even about how you set up your calendars and your schedules. Jeremy also has other things that he does outside of just the business. So really trying to keep up with which days is Chandler doing this? Which days is Jeremy doing that, and who has kid duty at whatever time or who goes on site. I know you've had calendars, plans, and processes, but some of those changed a bit.
Chandler Quarles 03:27
Yeah, we did that even more during COVID. Jeremy created a colored spreadsheet that said these are the hours we're doing these different things because we weren't leaving the house. He wasn't going anywhere else, but it just helped to have the systems that we knew. We filled it with who's taking care or taking the lead with our son at what times and having a plan and structure within what could have been a very unstructured time with us being homebound and quarantined. This created structure for us. It allowed us to really get a lot done for our business and take some steps forward. It was about six weeks in when things were slowing down. They really started to pick up in May, but through March and April, things were just a little slower. We were wondering about what's this gonna look like? Creating those structures and systems gave us a purpose and helped us to continue working hard, even though maybe our client work was a little bit slower. We also get a lot done, even without any other childcare. It was just the two of us, and we were tag-teaming, but we made it work.
Michele 04:34
What I think is so interesting about that, too, is you were very intentional to build before you went into all that. Then even when you got in it, and everything got locked down around the country, you were also in a position to almost rethink your schedule. I remember you mentioning in The Designer's Inner Circle as one of my coaching clients, yes, we had a plan and then we looked at the plan and needed to adjust again with all of us home and with what we were doing because it was almost that feeling of we can be a bit unstructured because of outside demands on our time, shifted. That 6-feet of quiet all of a sudden, what are we supposed to do now? I love how you worked to adjust, and Jeremy created the color-coded spreadsheet.
Chandler Quarles 05:26
It is problem-solving. I know where I need to be, I need to get x, y, & z done, I want to use my time more wisely, and we were kind of trying to make sure I was diligently incorporating the Miracle Morning that you talk about into my workday to start things off well. I was kind of complaining about how I feel a little aimless with my time now that we're in quarantine. The next day Jeremy came and said, "I've created this spreadsheet for you. Tell me what you think of it. It's color-coded", and I'm like, "this is actually exactly what I needed." But it helped all of us despite us already having a system. Then as with everyone, everything took a hard right turn in March. We said, "okay, well, how can we adjust our systems?" but because we were already used to kind of tag teaming and figuring out solutions while we both were working. We were fortunate that we're already used to working from home and trying to balance all of that. So it was mostly trying to figure out how can we do this a little differently? I don't think it was as much of a shock to our system as maybe for some people during that time.
Michele 06:34
And as we're looking at it, one of the things that you mentioned and that we were talking about is this refining of the systems, the ideas, this refining of where you're going and what you're doing. So one of the things we want to really focus on during our time on the call today is doing a live coaching call and answering the question, kind of what is one of the biggest challenges or what are the biggest challenges that you're facing now? Because your business is evolving and it's growing, you're getting more of the jobs that you want and the ideal clients that you want. But it's not just you getting there and done. It's like plodding through. You don't get to the top easily; there's no elevator to the top for success. You got to take the stairs, which is where you are now. Share with us if you would, in your business trajectory, in this growth, in the scaling that we're working on together, what do you see as the challenge in front of you right now?
Chandler Quarles 07:43
I think you worded that so well, I wrote it down in my notes. We feel like we're in the middle of the staircase, and we can look back at the steps. We've already climbed and said, "wow, look, we're so much further ahead than we were. Even today, we see the series ahead of us and want to make sure that we are traveling wisely. Do you have any initial thoughts, Jeremy, on kind of what our biggest challenges are right now?
Jeremy Quarles 08:15
I think it's just like what you said, but feeling like we're in the middle of the staircase is ambitious. We're definitely a couple steps ahead from where we were six months ago and a year ago. We know that it's a long game, and we just have to continue doing the right things over a sustained period of time, strategically. But sometimes it's hard to know if you're taking those correct steps. We've thought a lot about hiring. It is weighing heavily on our minds but is it the right timing and what that would look like. A lot of the scaling questions that we've been talking about, even in our inner circle calls. Just been circulating to make sure that we're thinking about that properly and taking the right steps to go where we want.
Chandler Quarles 09:09
Another kind of aspect of that is when you talked about the ideal client just a minute ago. I feel that we have started to get some of the true ideal clients. I have a couple of clients I'm working with right now that is that, but not all of them are. We have a lot of great clients, but there are projects that I kind of hope I won't be taking anymore, maybe in six months. We're still kind of leaps and bounds ahead of where I was maybe a year ago with the clients. I was getting the calls, I was getting the projects, but it just feels like we're still working to get there but not yet. We are really making sure that all the projects we're working on are that ideal client. I think that's always circulating through our minds, and sometimes we can both get frustrated with it because we see what it could be. We see where we could be as a business, and we're just not there yet. We know that it's a process.
Michele (10:16)
I want to throw out a couple of ideas to you. Some ways to reframe it or to additionally frame them because there's nothing wrong with the way that you just described to me. I don't want to make it seem like you're describing it incorrectly, but I want to say to you, there's more than one way to look at it—a different vantage point. I saw on the news today, some pictures of the devastation because we are right a day after the big hurricane hit Louisiana, and a lot pictures of the before and after. It was interesting because there's a building with all the windows blown out, or at least a good portion of the windows. I saw like four or five different pictures from the people who were standing in different location, taking a picture of that building. Sometimes we think there's just one way to look at something yet, we might need to walk around the building to kind of look at and see it differently. I want to take you on a journey to walk around and look at some things in your business, just so that you understand. Number one, I want to acknowledge what I call the muddy middle, which where I think you're, and that's not a bad place to be. It is where you feel like there's a lot of work to be done. It's muddy like our neighbors right now. They are putting in a sprinkler system, and they know they're going to be reseeding their entire yard and their home because they know that they have to be careful in digging the dirt up. We're in Georgia, it is red clay and red mud in their entire yards. They are in the money. That is how we feel when we're in this position. Now they know, and they're looking forward for the yard to be fantastic with the sprinkler system inside and everything it's coming, but they're not there yet because there's a lot of work to be done in the trenches and in the mud. Not to mention, we just had rain, it is filled up, so they got to go back and let it dry out. Think about it from a construction standpoint, you're in that place because you're building your business. So you're in the trenches, it's a little muddy, and that's where we have to do the work so that we can get on to the other side. One thing to be excited about is when you're reaching the muddy middle, instead of looking at it and going, "this is weird, or I'm in the middle," I want you to start acknowledging that you're there because of the work that you do there will helps continue to build a solid foundation for everything that will comes. Make sense?
Chandler Quarles 12:54
Yeah.
Michele 12:54
The second thing that I want to say to you is when you're starting to get these ideas, there's a timeline where you're working out those non-ideal clients. It is this middle ground, the muddy part where you're starting to get the ideal, which then almost highlights the non-ideal ones. Use that as something to help you as you write it down because maybe those that you took are no longer your ideal. They were ideal when you said yes to the job, but because your views and your ideas change, you're already a couple of steps higher in the stairwell now. So acknowledge that although they were ideal when we took them, they are no longer for where you're going. This gives you that ability to kind of do the blessing release, work it through, finish it up, honor, and acknowledge that they were there to teach you, then use that information to say that they're no longer your ideal. Let that be the guide to get you to the next place. Because even though the one that you're looking at now is your ideal, in a year may not be. You're growing, and as you grow, your clients are growing with you all the time. Just recognize that this is a part of the path up to where you want to be or to whatever you want it to look like. It's easier to say, "I'm just on the path as I'm working it through." Another thing I wanted to mention to you is sometimes when we're starting off when we started working together, we are capturing the low hanging fruit. So we might have big strides, big momentum, some huge gains, and big wins, all at the beginning, and that's good. Then the work comes a little more slowly. It's not always huge leaps and bounds the entire way through the process. Some of that comes at the beginning, then all of a sudden, it almost feels like taking two steps back, and then three steps forward. But that's okay because that's where we learn and where we refine. Let's think about Judah, your son, he's learning, he's going to get it right, but then he's going to get it wrong, then he's going to get it right again. When he goes a little further, maybe fall down, and he's going to get back up and go a little more further. It's the back, and forth that actually built it into our subconscious and makes us on it a little bit more resilient. That's what you're working through right now. It's not always up all the time. We might see some cases of that here and there or in our mind, we think that's what it's supposed to be, but it's not. It's the working it through that you're doing, you are taking what you know, and you're moving it down into your expertise. That's where we get it from our head to our heart and out into our actions, and that takes a little bit of time. You might know a lot nut taking all of that and putting it into the heart so that you know what to do and how to do it, when to react, and all of that takes time and experience, so that's what you're gaining right now. Not to discount any of the way you described it because all of that is very valid. Just to add this in, we need to learn to see the beauty and where we are, and the lessons that we are learning. Sometimes you see people that do things, and you think, "oh my goodness, I want to do that." Equally as important is to see people that are doing things that you don't like and say, "I don't want to do that." We can't miss that in this opportunity. One last thing and then we'll ask you some questions. There is the concept that I talked to you all about, towards the end of last year called a gap in the game, I don't know if you remember this, but I even told you back in November, December, even in my own business, that I felt I was not where I was supposed to be. I'm not where I thought I would. And I dwelled on that for a little while. I can tell you, the longer I dwelled on, I'm not where I thought I should be, the worst I felt, and the more that I looked at my business, almost with some contempt. Even though I loved what I was doing, all of those things were great, but in my mind, I had some ideal setup, and I had not yet reached it. One of my friends in my mastermind group said to me she told me about this concept of the gap and what she said from her understanding of the reading that she had done, if we're always looking at the gap, the difference between where we are and where we want to go, we are always going to be behind, and that leads to depression. We've got to look and acknowledge for where we're going and what we want to do, but we can't always just look at the gap between where we are and where we going, or what we know and what we don't know. We have to equalize it by looking at the game. When we look at the game, we look back to where we were, and then where we are today, you got the entire picture which leads to a more clear understanding. I want to encourage you that if you are in your muddy middle, wherever you are in the staircase, I want you to look forward to where you want to go, so you can be encouraged. That's where we get inspiration. Also, when we look back at the game what we've already done, that's where we build confidence. You will not build your confidence only looking forward. You will always see what you haven't attained. You will always feel like something's missing. However, when you look back at what you've done, what you've accomplished, where you've been, how far you've come, all those things are what build your confidence to honestly take the next step to where you want to go. I want to encourage you, when you're in the middle and everybody listening who's in the middle, sit down and write down where you were and where you've come from. We sometimes forget the journey of where we've been, and we are only looking ahead, so I want you to look at your business balance. How long have you been in business?
Chandler Quarles 19:59
I think a little over three years since we haven't been working for someone else too.
Michele 20:05
Okay, so somewhere between three to four years. Look at what you think you want. This is a journey. This is a marathon. This isn't a sprint. I'm not saying you can't have that quickly. I'm not saying that at all, but I'm saying we also have to give ourselves some grace for the journey.
Chandler Quarles 20:25
If we come as far in the next three years as we've come in the last three years, that'll be a good sign.
Michele 20:32
Let's look at other things in the middle of all this. You've moved to a new house. You've had other large events. You're not a one truck business anymore. With all of that reframing or additional framing, now, tell me how you feel about the challenges ahead.
Jeremy Quarles 20:53
Like there's a good life lesson though, looking back.
Chandler Quarles 20:56
Yeah, I think that's really good for me, because sometimes I don't want to look back because I'm almost embarrassed of where I used to be. I think I'm such a forward thinker. Sometimes I don't want to think about the business choices I was making three years ago because that's embarrassing. I wasn't doing things right. I should say instead, "wow, look how far I've come. Look how far I've come." See it as glass is half full instead of half empty. That's also just encouraging because it feels like it breeds contentment, to think of it that way and acknowledge that we're where we're supposed to be, we're supposed to be in the middle right now.
Michele 21:40
The messy middle lasts longer than the rest of it. Think about it from the time you start to the time you end your career, everything in the middle is messy. It's kind of when they when somebody died, they put the headstone up with the date they were born and dash the date they died, you're in the dash.
Chandler Quarles 22:03
I think it's also encouraging because everybody in the messy middle to some extent. Some people are further down or a little closer to the end of it, but we're all figuring stuff out. We're thinking about it in a way that breeds contentment and eliminates comparison to some extent.
Michele 22:24
Yeah, it does, and again, I'm telling you, I do the same thing. It's not saying you need to stay where you are. You can absolutely keep moving forward. It's affirming where you've come because that builds the confidence that is going to propel you for where you want. Yeah, that's good. I even do that in my parenting. I pray a lot of grace over that, thankfully my kids are grown and I'm still praying grace over that. I do it in my spiritual life, in our family finances. We look where we were, we're always trying to measure and to move ahead in our lives. Sometimes while it could be painful to look back, because of where we were, what we believed, what we were doing, how things looked, the choices we were making. It does make you feel like you can keep going. That this isn't so bad, because you're not still stuck back where you were, you've moved up the staircase.
Chandler Quarles 23:46
Do you have any practices that you do to celebrate that, especially as a small business, you have people to work for you? Sometimes it's not like I have a boss that's going to say, "good job," in a performance review and telling me that things are going well.
Jeremy Quarles 24:07
I can start giving you performance reviews.
Michele 24:11
Let's start doing that * laugh
Jeremy Quarles 24:15
Let's trade out business for marriage counseling.
Michele 24:19
Right? I do have some practices to do that. One of the things that I do is I set goals in my business. I set a high goal, and then I set intermediate goals because we don't go from again, zero all the way up in an instant. We're meeting certain things in the middle. Some of mine are, is honestly, taking my family out to dinner. If I hit this goal, we're all going to go out to have dinner or we're going to cook a special dinner here, or we're going to do a certain thing. One time I had a really big goal, and I went and bought a bottle of champagne. Then we all had a glass of champagne and celebrated. I do a lot of things like that. One time it was a pair of jeans that I wanted that I normally wouldn't spend the money on, and I thought if I hit the goal, I'm going to go buy those. Sometimes, I will allow myself, then the best buy to me is having dinner with my family or doing something like that. Sometimes I'm gonna take an afternoon off and go sit on the back porch with a friend. If I can hit this goal, I'm going to go build community in the backyard. I literally say it when and if this happens, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to celebrate, and again it doesn't all have to be money-based, usually it's what inspires you and makes you feel good. For me, it's about being with my family, my grown sons, and my husband. Or be with my girlfriends and hanging out to have conversation and chill or taking an afternoon off and going for a walk. Doing something that normally I wouldn't be doing because of work that feels almost like I'm being treated. Just because I'm not sitting in my office at my desk. And so I just set those up. And when I hit it, I'm like, We're going, we're gonna quit. However, I would say it's not always waiting for the big things to celebrate. It's celebrating the steps, and that's what I want to say to you, if we're only going to celebrate when we get to the top of the staircase. It's always like that carrot hanging out there, but we get tired and exhausted. It's all the little stuff I want you to celebrate, like when you go up three steps. It can be a small celebration. It could be the two of you do a high five and you go out and get lunch. It could be to turn on music, dance around the kitchen. It doesn't have to be huge. It could be just a we're gonna get together to scream and yell and get excited for a minute. It's recognizing the steps. That's what's most important here because if you don't do that you're constantly having to look back to see now, where did I come from? So I want you to celebrate each step. Sometimes I had a client, this week we talked on Monday, she's a one to one client with me, and she had a really tough on install happening on Wednesday, like really tight. Things had gone really bad, and it needed to be uninstalled. She had a pit in the middle of her stomach on Monday. She was making it right, everything was going to be okay, but it was just painful, right? Anybody's been in business long enough, they're going to have that. So I started talking to her on Monday about I don't want you so focused on Wednesday. I want you to focus on Thursday. Let's put your mind if they're on Thursday, this will be done. On Thursday we're going to celebrate because no matter what happens on Wednesday, we're done. We're focusing on Thursday. If you focus on Wednesday, you're going to feel sick, you're going to feel ill. You're going to have a hard time because it's going to be negative. I want you to start being excited for Thursday. Thursday came then she sent me an email stating today is Thursday. It was last night, saying that it is done, it is over, it went fine. That's the way we have to start looking at some of these things. We put up a celebration from Monday to Thursday just to get through something that she was dreading. So I say build that in, build it because we are self-employed and nobody's going to give an Attaboy.
Chandler Quarles 28:41
I think that's really good for us too because as spouses that work together too I think we can sometimes end up feeling really furious. I mean for goodness sake, we're making people's house pretty it should be fun. I think building in is important; it's not somber, it's in celebration.
Jeremy Quarles 29:06
I think that marks it too so that even when you are looking back, like in the Bible, they would do like stones of remembrance to look back. To remind us what the Lord did here. Doing those sorts of things like going out to dinner or getting a bottle of champagne like you remember those things and what they're tied to will help you to look back and see how far we've come. Kind of like you said, breeds contentment and encourages you to continue moving forward.
Michele 29:48
I'll take that even one step further. One of my favorite books in the Bible is Joshua, and that's what my business is named upon. That's where they're taking the stones of remembrance to give them forward. One year for Christmas, I gave my son's a stone, and a journal as a reminder of all the things that God had done for them in the last year. I asked them to look at that stone and then to put the journal beside it. As things happen throughout, you document it, because there is what they called spiritual amnesia when you go, and you can't remember, so that was the whole exercise for. Don't forget what God's done for you and I would say is the same type of thing in our business. We forget where we've come, we forget what we've already accomplished, we forget what we've already done. Also, if that is super important, then get a stone and a journal. Even if the celebration is just to write it in the journal, that is enough of a celebration, then at the end of the year, you pull it out, and you can read for the last year. Even if you started it today, you have four months of remembering before you hit the end of the year. Another thing that you probably heard on a prior podcast is in my family, we do a New Year's Day, dinner in our home. This year is getting ready to be the first year that it's more than the four of us because the rule is you have to be engaged to marry for anybody else to join. I have an engaged son, so this is going to be our first year with five people. It is interesting to invite somebody in, but we've been doing this since our kids were tiny. We do a family fondue, which is a slow meal. We all go through and talk about our highs then our lows for the year where we saw how God worked. Then we talk about our goals for the next year, so each of us talks about our independent goals, and we set family goals as a family. Where do we want to go for vacation, what experiences do we want to have? We wrote them down, and we kept up with it. Every year the boys, even though they're grown, would still ask, "we need to do our event, and we need to talk about it where we get to remember. That's a good time to bring out that note, to remind yourselves of what the business has done, how far you've come, and then turn the page and right, so we're all gonna be excited to turn this page to 2021. We got to sit it with the stone and then make note for next year.
Jeremy Quarles 32:35
That's a good idea
Chandler Quarles 32:37
Yeah. You need to do that.
Michele 32:41
Just try it. I think you'll be embarrassed but just try it for four months. And then if you don't like it, you can be done but just try. Let me ask you this, knowing where you are in the muddy middle, knowing that there's not just one direct challenge in front of you, but I would say the biggest challenge is just continued growth and staying the course. I don't want us to underestimate holding on in the middle is a challenge in and of itself because it takes on different forms all the time. Would you agree? So what would you like to happen for the next step? Not for the whole big picture. What would you like to happen just for the next step to move you up one floor on your staircase?
Chandler Quarles 33:28
The biggest thing that comes to mind is hiring our first employee, which we started but haven't because we're saving for. With profit first, we have been doing all of the work that you're doing with us in the Designers Inner Circle about hiring, about employees. All that has been perfect timing because, and I think hopefully sometime in the beginning of next year, of 2021, I'm hiring a junior designer/assistant for me. A part of that is also we're hoping to start growing our family again probably next year, and it will be great to have someone else on hand whenever we have another newborn at some point. That's been heavy on our minds, because it is kind of overwhelming that we're gonna be responsible for someone else's income, but that I think we are looking forward in a positive way to what the next step is.
Michele 34:42
Okay, so let's talk about that for a minute. So a couple of things, what we've been working on in The Inner Circle is to get ready just for those that are in there. We have been working on what are the functions of your company. We've been talking about the job description and how it fits in. We've been walking you through on how to create onboarding plans, how to hire them, all those good things, and how we're going to figure out how to pay them. You're talking about the Profit First, I usually have you set aside three months of their salary before you hire them. Just to make sure that you've got that bandwidth to onboard them, train them, and take some time away from what you're doing without impacting the full-on finances of the company. We talked about making some of their work billable versus non-billable so that they can pay for themselves with the higher you need to make a profit on them. We've done a lot of that work, I know you're working through all that. Do you feel at this point that you know you need a Junior designer?
Chandler Quarles 35:47
I don't think we know that yet. I don't feel like I have the "avatar" of the person in my mind yet.
Michele 36:03
So here's what I would say to you, as you're building the avatar for this ideal employee, because it works very similarly to ideal client, I want you to not think about where you are now, Chandler, but I want you to think about what you need if you need to take a 12 week maternity. I've helped a couple of other designers do this, where they're saying, "I need to have my business poised to continue to build my family." That's what we tried to do as we're planning in advance for what are the needs of the company when you step out in some capacity for 12 weeks. It doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be all the way out, but you're going to be in a reduced capacity, no doubt. What is the skill set because you may find that you need more than a junior designer. Or it may not necessarily be a senior designer, it just might be a designer, there are levels and all of that. Sometimes when we get Junior, though, if we're not careful, we get one that is so Junior that you still can't step out. There is a need to create this in such a way that if you were to say, for example, for the first four weeks, especially with COVID, who knows where we're going to be in a year, but let's say that maybe in your mind, you thought about it this way. I.e. for the first month after having my baby, I'm not going to any houses. So if there's any on-site that needs design related, then they have to be able to go on-site and translate that. There are some things that Jeremymight start to take over, maybe with project management and some of those things where he could be on site. So in some ways, you have two resources here; you've got Jeremy and this new person. So looking at your current work that could be handed off, what might be moved to Jeremy that you can spend this time building Jeremy up in? Then maybe it's you need somebody who can draw. Maybe it's somebody who can do sourcing and selections for you. Maybe somebody who does procurement management. Chandler, start with writing your full job description.
Chandler Quarles 38:31
Mm hmm.
Michele 38:33
So instead of focusing on theirs, let's focus on yours. Everything that you do and which things would you not able to do as easily during maternity leave? Then which of those things could you maybe not do? What could go to Jeremy based on the conversations you guys have been having. How he's going to be more active? Are there other things you might want to take on? Which things do you need a designer instead then you can look at that list and ask yourself, what is the highest level person that I could hire to do that for the amount that I have?
Chandler Quarles 39:10
As far as figuring out what I need, we talked about this some inner circle, but what an appropriate salary is for different levels in our area. How do people usually go about kind of making sure that that's accurate?
Michele 39:26
Yeah, good question. So one, you can go on to some of the different job boards, and you can start looking around at what other people are hiring for an equal skillset. Look at the job description. I want you to think about compensation broader, deeper, and wider than just money because it's about more than money. When we are compensating people, we're compensating them in a multitude of ways. One is money. On top of that, If it's a sales position, we may have some commissions. If it is just an employee that's not in sales, sometimes they get some percentage or some bonus based on company profitability. Everything doesn't have to be sitting in salary. There may be a stipend for healthcare, or if you guys are in a health care plan, it could be vacation time. It could be flexibility on the job, being able to step in and out. There are so many other ways that we can offer. It could be education, maybe you pay for them to take a course or go to an event or go to High Point. Some of those things become benefits in the job that they like. It could be cell phone reimbursement if they're using their cell phone while they're on your business while they were going to pay for the cell phone anyway, so then that becomes a more compensation for them. I want you to think deeper and wider. There are other things I know I would much rather be in a job that was flexible, even though it paid a little bit less. When it paid a lot more, but it's so rigid that I couldn't even go to the dentist if I needed to, and they don't see you after hours on the weekends. So what I would do is, let's say that you find the rate for a junior designer, and I'm going to throw out, based on where you are in the country, and nobody call me and start freaking out here, you can sometimes see between $35 and $40,000, as a beginning for Junior designer. Certainly in some markets that could be higher or lower, but that's kind of what we're seeing kind of at. Let's see, $35,000 that's around, $17 to 20 bucks an hour somewhere in that range, and that's pretty normal. What I would also suggest as you start lower because you can always go up. I have had multiple people come to me, they hired somebody, $25, $35, $45, $50 an hour, thinking that they had XYZ skill set that they put on their resume, and the person doesn't really know it. Now it is costing them so much. Whereas if they had started a little lower and then seeing what they could do after 90 days, you can always go up in your pay, you cannot go down without causing. So I would say you can also go in and say, "I will start you at $17. And then as your work progresses, as we see what you can do, there is room for upward mobility. You can move up, we're not keeping you stagnant," but I would hesitate to go super high unless you have seen a proven track record of what they could do. Another thing in the hiring process, and we have a couple of different podcasts on here about hiring, is creating a hiring process. It's not I'm going to meet you one time, and you're done. You could have them come in and give them a design. You might have to pay them for half a day's worth of work. Sometimes they do that. Have them come in and do work, have them come in and shadow you. See what they do, give them like an idea of this is the aesthetic or this is what happened. What would you build for me, draw it for me? You tell me you can do drawings, so show me what you've done. Ask for examples of the work. Don't let them say to you, "I can't show you any pictures. I work for another company." It's should be under their portfolio. If they can't do that, they can draw it from what you have now so they can show you. Give them items, see if they can actually do the work. You can always go up on how you pay them. You just can't go down. This is why I want you to think about what you're doing and what you want to do. What is it that you need to be handled? We have two job descriptions, right? We've got the external job description that we use to hire, which is a little bit more pretty and flowery. Then internally, we have a job description that says, here's what you do. Here's how you do it. Here are the standard operating procedures. There are more details internally. We want that to be so clear. Remember, clear is kind. The more clear we are with them, the more they know what to do. They know what to expect when to get it done. How you want it done, what you want it to look like, that's what's going to ease your mind, so you are able to take time off to have a baby. I talk about my five E's all the time. We educate them, we equip them, we set the expectations, we empower them, and then we encourage them. We want them to have those five E's done before you step out. That means they know what to do. They know how to do it, the level to do it, when to do it. and they're empowered to make decisions around it, whatever it is. Sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. And you know what that means? It means this is where we have to be intentional when hiring, because if we're not, and we hire out of a need to do it and need to do it quick, just get somebody on board because I'm so exhausted, I'm so tired. I'm so busy. When we hire them under that kind of pressure or duress, almost, we don't have the time to set them up properly. I described it on the Inner Circle call the other day, and I had another client told me, "the way you described this made me catch my breath." What I said was, it would be like you inviting somebody to your home for the weekend, and not being prepared for them to come. The guest room isn't made up. The bathroom is dirty. You haven't bought groceries, there's no plan for a meal. You have no nothing, and they show up because you invited them, but you are so unprepared. How do they now feel in your home? Do they feel welcome? Did they feel a part of it? Are they excited to be there? What would they tell their friends, and will they come back? If we are inviting someone into your company, and we're not doing those things, it is the equivalent of inviting a best friend or somebody that you care about, being completely oblivious to them being here, and making these like you're on your own. Nobody wants that. That's miserable. Yet that's what we do.
Chandler Quarles 46:41
I've been in that position as the employee.
Michele 46:45
It is horrible. That happens because we hire during overwhelm. We hire without a plan. We hire without an onboarding process. Training process, and follow up process. We don't have any of that done. We just bring somebody in and hope it all works out. It makes me think of the commercial where the grandmother and the grandfather show up in the taxi cab, they get out and walk up to the house. Then the mom and the dad hand them the kids, jump in the taxicab and go off. The grandparents like, "don't leave me with the babies." It's the same kind of thing. You think you're coming for one thing, and you're just left to your own device. This work that you're doing for six months, and we talked about in inner circle all the time, is the difference between important, urgent, and significant. I want you to see this is hard work but is this significant work. The work that you do preparing for that employee will pay off like crazy because number one, it'll help you get the right employees because you know exactly what you're hiring for. Then it will help you onboard them. It will help you equip them, empower them, and have them ready to do the work because now you and they are prepared. It is a much different scenario than I'm out on Indeed looking for somebody, and I don't even know what I need him to do.
Chandler Quarles 48:16
Also, I can't imagine how badly that could go with clients involved. If you have somebody that doesn't know what they're doing and interfacing with clients on my behalf. That makes me anxious just thinking about that.
Michele 48:34
Here's another thing that I would tell you that kind of the next step after you've done some of this work it is to create communication templates. So that when they do communicate on your behalf, you know what you're communicating how they're communicating, and it matches your plan. You need to have templates for communication setup. Here's how we give this message, here's how we get that information. They now can go into a Google doc, pull it down, and fill in the missing information to send it out. It's coming from your brand versus you having to sit, reread everything, and change the tone. You create it and set the tone for them. The cool thing is because what we're really building here for both of you, we've talked about this before, you're trying to have an impact and a legacy. When we're on that business needs hierarchy, we're doing impact and legacy. That means we're building the brand, we're not building Chandler and we're not building Jeremy, we're building the peace of mind - home brand. When we're building the brand, and it shouldn't matter if somebody interacts with your company. If they interact with you, or with Jeremy, or with any hire, they should feel the same way. That's what you start to build. When we get in that order, their sales profits in order. You build process so that no matter how somebody comes in to deal with you and talk with you, or to interact with your company, they're getting the peach and pine experience. This is where you have to define what does that look like. What does your company culture look like? Be very clear on what are the values that you guys are standing on to make sure whoever you're hiring is in alignment with those values because that's what's going to move you forward up that staircase. If they're not in alignment with the values and all those things, they might speak differently, maybe the tone is different. I promise you, when you talk about client interaction, and you're going down the staircase, I'm not talking about being rigid, but being in agreement. The more you've defined it, the more you live it, and the more you build, whatever your why and your values are, into your processes, it just becomes a natural outflow of what it's like if you value kindness. You're going to be kind if you value in integrity, you're going to build processes that allow you to have integrity in all that you do. It's not hard. It's just being aware. It's what we're doing and that how we're acting. Then it gives the employee the ability to say, "I really don't want to tell the client that we messed that up. But because we're a company that acts with truth and integrity, we're going to own it. And I'm going to admit then say we're going to fix it." I would rather have an employee who knew that versus the lie, cheat, and covering up. So I don't want you to underestimate. I know you're in the middle, but I want you to look at this middle as a beautiful time to construct and build. Think about it as a foundation. If you've got dreams to build way up here, it's going to take a really solid foundation for you to do that. If those cornerstones are not set properly, or there are cracks in that foundation, and you're trying to build up, you may get high, then it's going to come crashing down. So the more you spend getting this part, the easier it gets. Otherwise, it's going to be an up, down, up, down, knock it down, build it over, redo it, undo it, wrong brick, it doesn't match, all those kinds of analogies. It's going to look like you just slapped it together versus a very proper plan. You would never go in and design a space in a room by just throw stuff in and hope it all coordinates. You would start with some solid foundation to build for that room with space planning and color palettes. You're doing the same thing right now for your business. So I want you to look at all of these as you're designing your bids, and you have the right to design it. I don't want you to look at as, "oh great. I got to go do this." I want you to go, "We have the opportunity to design this firm." What do you think about that? It's still a lot of work, but you didn't reduce your work. It's really about changing the way you see your work.
Chandler Quarles 53:15
Makes me excited. We've been starting to build the foundation for hiring, but this conversation makes me feel a little more confident because I know we have to do that. Jeremy's been working hard on our operations document with all in order, and we're building up that salary in our savings so that we can pay somebody. We've been thinking about through all that stuff, but I sometimes still get paralyzed. Doing that just sounds so overwhelming. All the things that could go wrong with hiring somebody, but thinking about it, again with the glass half full, about all the things that we could do for our business and the way that it can build a foundation for the future. It makes me more excited.
Michele 53:58
So instead of looking at it that I have to do these things, I get to build the business that I want and to dream up, which serves us and serves others. Because then that puts you in the position to have control over what you're building. You can still do every single thing. I am not suggesting that it's a cause and effect every single time, but at least I would like to know if something goes wrong. So since I did everything I knew to do and within my power and my ability, if it still goes wrong, I'm going to ask that big question. What can I learn? I don't want the fear of that to stop you. I want you to let that fear propel you to say, "knowing what I know, seeing what I see, watching everybody else sharing their nightmares that are causing this fear, what can I do to protect us and to put us in a better situation knowing that it is never 100% foolproof." It's no different than buying a house. You hope that the inspection caught everything. You hope that you saw everything you needed to see, but you can never be 100% sure. This is when faith and trust come in, and that's exciting, but sometimes it's really cool to know that there are things that are happening that you didn't plan for and are outside of your control, but those are blessings.
Chandler Quarles 55:35
Right. Yeah.
Michele 55:36
So is there anything you're not willing to do? To take these next steps?
Chandler Quarles 55:43
Prioritizing our family. I'm okay to build our business slower if it means having a healthy work-life balance like we've talked about, I mean, there's never any perfect balance. There are weeks when we feel like family taking the cake, and there are weeks whenever I'm working really late to get ready for that meeting or whatever. So, I know it's not perfect, but I don't want to look back and go, "well, I slaved away 70 hours a week for all those years, and here I am." I don't ever want to slave away a week, even if I'm building slower.
Michele 56:19
Okay, so let me give you some ideas on how to look at that. I may have shared this on the podcast before, but I remember when I took my son to his two-year-old checkup. One of the things that the doctor asked me was like, "what is he eating? And how is he eating?" And I answered, "oh my gosh, chicken nuggets, chicken nuggets, chicken nuggets. And then he'll run around in his broccoli, broccoli, broccoli, and then he'll turn on his peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter." One of the things he said to me was "Michele, when you're looking at your son's diet, what is a healthy diet? I don't want you to look at it for each day. I want you to look at it over a time period of a week because kids tend to go through phases, where they're like developing their tastes and eating one thing, and then you offer it, you make it available. But I want you to balance it out over the week or over a two week period. Did he get all that he needed to grow and survive and all these things over a period of time? Because if he did, it's okay." He said, "don't you ever go through a phase where you eat one thing or do one thing more than you do another and see the balance." That has been a great lesson for me. So the same holds true here. In other words, some of this work that you're doing right now, to build all of the policies, the procedures, and all the things that we've been working on together, takes time on top of serving your client. In some of these building moments, it may be that you have a little less time with the family. We're doing them because they're significant, and you're going to give yourself a 12 weeks with your family to have a baby. That's when we're looking at it over the long haul. It's not 70, 70, 70, and then 70 while you're out on maternity leave, because you have no option. It might be that we have spurts of extra at some point where we have to take a little bit of a step back with family, so that we can create more time with family later. So just want you to keep in mind, sometimes with this extra build, it does take a little extra time when you're also trying to do it with an active client base. Don't limit yourself because what you're going to do if you limit too much and too stringent, you still got to do it later. Just start thinking of giving yourself enough time that you're not trying to cram it into a 70 hour week, be very intentional. Let Jeremy build those spreadsheets for you that tells you when you got to go work on it, and you two continue to work on it together because that's what's going to free you up. Listen, if you can build a business where you can take 12 or 13 weeks and have a baby, then you're building a business that you can step out of later to go on vacation.
Chandler Quarles 59:13
Yeah, that sounds great.
Michele 59:16
But it takes intention. It really takes intention. Yeah. Jeremy, what do you think about all this?
Jeremy Quarles 59:21
Oh, you know me, sounds great.
Michele 59:23
You already got the color-coded pens out, and you're ready to go.
Jeremy Quarles 59:26
That's right. I think you both are saying the same thing. We want to continue to build and grow, but not at the expense of the things that are important. There's definitely a give and take with that at different times of the business, which we're working through. Even now. In the last two weeks. We've had a bunch of family in town and things. We haven't been able to work as much. That's due to sickness and that sort of thing. Now in the next two weeks, you have to do the design plans, and we're going to be slammed. That's just kind of the inflows, keeping the focus on the important things and looking at it over the period of time is important.
Michele 1:00:07
And here's an exercise that I usually have you do at the end of the year. And so I don't know if you remember when I had you all do it, but I said write down what is important to you not to miss. What is that? Is it two dinners and not a week as a family? What is it that makes you feel balanced? I went through and wrote down what is most important that I don't miss it like when you're saying I don't want to miss it. I started by saying I wanted to build this, and it was pre-COVID. I wanted to be able to go out at least once every two weeks, so my girlfriends and I can have dinner. I wanted to be able to have at least two meals with the family or whatever I cook, I cook with joy. I actually had to write that down. Meaning I don't want to like be throwing hot dogs on the grill because I'm exhausted. I wanted to have two meals that I could plan out with joy, be relaxed, and actually enjoy the process of putting a meal on the table because I like that when I don't feel stressed. So that meant I had to create non-stress, right? It might be that once a quarter, I go on a weekend trip with my husband, whatever that is. So I want you to write down what is it that you're not willing to give up that is super important and that you want to have time for, and if you write it down, then you can build it into the plan and make sure you don't step on top of it with the business. So be clear on what it is you don't want to give up. Or what is it that hold space that you don't want to book on top of. Go ahead and pre-booked it on your calendar. So if you know you want to go on vacation, pre-booked it, if you know something's going to happen, go ahead and mark it. Get out and save the space. If you know you need two or three hours to build these processes, put it on the calendar and make it as an appointment that you're not willing to give up. Does it at least give you some things to walk away with, move forward, and not feel so bad about muddy middle?
Jeremy Quarles 1:02:19
Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Michele 1:02:21
But to feel like you can hold on and move forward actually with excitement and joy. You probably feel a lot more in control to build.
Chandler Quarles 1:02:27
I think my biggest takeaway is, I've got to start seeing more glasses as half full not glasses half empty. I love what we do. It's not like I just walk around like Eeyore all the time, but I think I can constantly feel like I'm not there yet. I have more to do.
Michele 1:02:47
What are your strengths on Strengths Finder?
Chandler Quarles 1:02:49
Oh, it's been like, seven or eight years since I've done strength finder. We are more enneagram people.
Michele 1:02:58
I'm a three.
Chandler Quarles 1:02:59
Oh, are you okay? Yes, I'm a three. Oh, get it done, that forward-looking always. I want to be successful and be perceived as successful and I go to emotion, this shame of I didn't do enough or what if I'm not doing enough or doing good enough, and he's a nine which is the peacemaker who wants to keep the internal peace and the peace with people around him nine with an eight.
Michele 1:03:30
So I'm a three as well, okay. Then you add in under strengthsfinder on the Maximizer
Chandler Quarles 1:03:35
I remember I was Maximizer
Michele 1:03:37
Okay, so Maximizer says big Go-Go Nevermore. I like to get things done and check them off to add all that into an enneagram three. It's always like, no matter how great it is, it's not enough. That is on my mind. I'm always thinking, and I've always thought I didn't even give that 100%
Chandler Quarles 1:03:59
Yeah.
Michele 1:04:01
I could attain, in some cases, more than the people around me, but in my mind, I still had more to give. I just didn't give it, and it might not be true, that's what I tell myself.
Chandler Quarles 1:04:11
That's how I am constantly doing. Someone will say you did a great job, and outside I'd say thank you, but in my mind, I thought that messed that one thing up, or I but I could have done more.
Michele 1:04:21
I could have gone farther, I guess. It's always the head talk. I'm about 20 years ahead of you. I'm telling you, I've had to take control of that and realize I can use the good part of that. There is more and a better way to do it, but I have got to balance it with what I've done because if not, there's always that feeling of shame. There's always that feeling of not enough. That is a horrid way to live your life when you're out. They're striving to work so hard. Yeah. So I just encourage you as a fellow three.
Chandler Quarles 1:05:08
That makes sense for me to hear through that, and that's also encouraging.
Michele 1:05:13
Just don't wait 20 years to do that. Just do it!
Chandler Quarles 1:05:16
Yeah.
Michele 1:05:17
But if it was any of the numbers on the enneagram, or with any strength finder, with anything, there's the good and the bad side. The part that pushes us and the part that pulls us. Then learning to kind of capture every thought and try to look at it. Remember that conversation we started this with, "look at the building from different places, and everybody's got a different view." You can be the one with a different view. Sometimes I asked myself, what would one say if they would do this? What a nine say if they looked at this? That gives you the different view.
Chandler Quarles 1:05:51
Yeah. One reason that's good to have you looking at it from different POV.
Michele 1:05:55
There's lots of good reasons to have Jeremy on it. It is good to be able to sometimes see it because I can promise you, Chandler the way you see you, and the way you see your work could be different than the way Jeremy sees you. It can be different from the way the client sees, and sometimes we have to realize that we think our opinion is the only one and it's not.
Chandler Quarles 1:06:24
Yeah, totally.
Michele 1:06:27
Let that help you instead of put you under shame and condemnation, or depression or less than. That's ultimately not gracious God talking. That is not talk of life. That's the words of death. That's not what you need to climb the staircase. That actually is going to push you down the staircase. Let's change that talk and move to the good side of the three on the enneagram.
Chandler Quarles 1:07:00
Yeah, most days I am on there, but there are days that he said I start to negative self talk myself. So it is very strong.
Michele 1:07:09
I think I think every one of them has a negative self-talk. It's just the talk is different. What it's saying to them is different, and so the best thing to do is the faster you can be aware of it and realize these patterns of thought, or patterns of behavior, you can capture it and ask yourself, is this true? Is this right? Do I need to act in this? Or do I need to shift the way I'm thinking? So just being aware of it is huge, but don't wait until you're in your 50s
Chandler Quarles 1:07:42
Yeah. I did standard Strength Finders with my old job. The whole company did it, and it was good, but I was also I think I was 21 when I took it, and I think I know myself so much better now. I think it'd be good for me to go back and do it again. But the enneagram has been a game-changer for both of us in understanding, "oh, that's why I'm thinking that way. And that's not healthy." Like you said, I know everybody thinks I'm boss.
Michele 1:08:13
Because I used to wonder when I was younger. Why did they not see what I see? How you don't see it, that is so scary to me. Well, but to say this real quick strengthsfinder might also be something really great to give as an assessment in the hiring process, especially if you know what types of strengths would be necessary for that particular job. It certainly not, "if you don't have it. I'm not going to hire you," but it's just more information. Well, you got some things to go do and some funds that you probably now have. It's something to celebrate.
Chandler Quarles 1:08:48
Yeah, we should celebrate.
Michele 1:08:50
I think you should celebrate something. Yeah, I bet if you guys just stop and go have lunch, you can already look back and say what could we celebrate from the break. One could be that you've survived through. I mean, seriously.
Chandler Quarles 1:09:06
So there's a lot to be said. This has been such a weird year, but there has been so much good for both of us and for our business.
Michele 1:09:16
The cool thing is the more you watch for it, the more you see it. I heard one time Beth Moore make the comment, we see little because we see little. If you want to see much, you got to see much. So I encourage you to not see little.
Chandler Quarles 1:09:38
It's good. Thank you.
Michele 1:09:39
Oh, you're so welcome.
Chandler Quarles 1:09:41
Just a really, I think refreshing challenge but also reminder for me with the way that I see our business, our goals, and see where we're at.
Michele 1:09:52
I love that you were willing to share that the challenge is not what some might perceive is huge, but it's that middle challenge and that we need to see it. It's all of the little things. It's all the little pieces, as they say sometimes it's like herding cats. It's all the stuff that has to be done for you to take the next step. So thank you both for coming on and sharing that I enjoyed the time with you today..
Chandler Quarles 1:10:20
Thank you so much, Michele as always.
Michele 1:10:22
So good to talk to you too. Thanks to Chandler and Jeremy for joining today and being so open and honest about their challenge. This is such a great conversation. You've heard us mention it more than once, but this is exactly the type of work that we do in the Designers Inner Circle. We focus on scaling, growing, and how that looks and works for each individual business. Come join us. We would love to journey with you. You can find out more at Scarlet Thread Consulting.com under the work with me page. Keep pushing forward and make profitability, finances, and decision making a priority, because profit doesn't happen by accident.