5 Signs It’s Time to Scale and Grow Your Interior Design Business
At some point in our business each of us may start to feel overwhelmed, stressed and wondering how we can serve more clients – or heck, keep the ones we have going. Maybe we are being asked by others how we are going to scale the business and what that looks like. In this article, we will focus on indicators that could trigger us that it is time to scale. Here are five signs that indicate scaling may be in your near future.
Out of time to serve clients
Do you find yourself out of time to serve your current clients, and maybe even worse, telling new ideal clients with ideal projects that you cannot work with them either at all or until months later? This is a definite sign that your business is busting at the seams. Having to tell an ideal client and project “No” or “Wait” crushes us and may make us feel like we are failing. Some small wait time is not a bad thing, but over 3 months to begin should definitely get our attention.
Overwhelmed with admin duties
Do you find yourself inundated with emails, texts, bookkeeping and other admin types of work? Can’t keep up? This may be a sign that you need to scale by hiring. When we start a business, we try to do it all, but as the business ramps up we immediately find that we cannot do it all and grow. If our precious time is taken to do admin duties when we really need to be working in a different capacity, our business growth could be hampered.
Future plans always on hold
We are creatives, and as such, we often have ideas for growth, new products or services. When we are always pushing off the implementation and exploration of new ideas just to get the current work done, we are once again limiting our business. Creating time to work on these activities is part of growing our business and if there is no bandwidth for these activities, we need to take notice.
You’ve reached your technology capacity
Ok, back to that idea of “let’s do it all” that we often use to start our business. At some point, we are going to exhaust not only our time, but our understanding of concepts that are not the main focus of the business. And if we spend time on those ancillary activities, we are taking that precious time away from what we do best. For example, if I have reached my limit on social media understanding and implementation, and need to understand more about a platform or strategy, to keep doing it and digging in may seem fine and a good use of my time, but it may very well reduce my time to serve clients (see issue one above) and cause stress that I could alleviate by getting skilled help.
You are exhausted
Work, work, work. Maybe you are finding your day getting longer at work. Or, you are climbing in bed with your computer and working late into the night and early morning, getting a few hours of rest and going again. Somewhere in the back of your mind you know there must be a better way. This is a signal that you need assistance.
There is no glory in feeling like we are working ourselves to death, spinning plates in the air, and hoping none fall. This never leads to a saner life or more peace. Scaling allows us to do more of what we love, in the way we love to do it, with those we love to serve. It doesn’t have to look the same for everyone. In the next article, we will uncover what scaling means and how to do it for your interior design business.
If you need help in this area, please check out The Designers’ Inner Circle where we have discussions about how to grow your business every month.
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