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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THE EPISODE:

WHY YOU NEED TO REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE WORK-BEE ROLE INTO LEADERSHIP ROLE

HOW TO CREATE PROFITABILITY IN YOUR BUSINESS

HOW TO HANDLE ADDITIONAL REQUESTS FROM YOUR CLIENTS

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I am honored to host LuAnn Nigara today to talk all about leadership in our industry, the struggles and the underlying reasons why stepping into leadership is so critical for the health and profitability of our business.

LuAnn Nigara is a celebrated media personality, keynote speaker and seasoned entrepreneur. Recognized as the “go-to” keynote speaker for leaders and entrepreneurs to launch their life and get out of their own way, she always delivers a dynamic presentation. In her third business launch, LuAnn Nigara Inc., she provides business resources for entrepreneurs through live events and LuAnn University. LuAnn has published three books, is a sought-after columnist and has captured international attention for her weekly podcasts “Window Treatments for Profit” and “A Well-Designed Business®” which has more than 1000 episodes and 9 million downloads. 

LuAnn shares her story of how she started her podcast, The Well-Designed Business® for designers when her business was a window treatment specialist and why she decided to lean into us crazy designers and this crazy industry of ours.

“The more authority, the more expertise that you can gain in a particular area, the more impact you can have.” says LuAnn.

LuAnn knew she didn’t want to start a podcast as a hobby, it was going to be her business. She was going all in. She did a deep dive and spent several weeks researching and time spent figuring out what she could talk about and not get bored of.

“Because you can’t just pick a topic and then do all of this work to set up all of the technical, the background and all of the infrastructure and then be like, well, seven of those conversations and I’m done. And so I was exploring all the things that were interesting to me as a human, as a person, as a window treatment professional, everything. And what I knew was interesting to me was business.” shared LuAnn. 

“That’s what I can talk about all day, every day. Whether it’s your business as a designer, your business as a window treatment person, your business as a bricklayer, your business as a digital marketer, it’s there’s marketing in there, there’s sales in there, there’s operations in there, there’s finance in there, there’s so many critical things that have to be understood well enough and two or three areas that you have to be a master at in order for all of it to coalesce and become a profitable business.” says LuAnn 

“I was like, I am not talking about the window treatment business. I just spent 35 years doing this every darn day. I was like, you know, I don’t want to take 20 years to make a dent in an industry. I’m coming in at the top of it. I started at 53 years old. I’m like, no, we’ve got to make it faster than this. And so I thought, who wants to be one pebble in an ocean, one little thing? And window treatments I knew I didn’t have the juice to talk about for a long period of time. But it was business. And that’s when I really looked to my body of experience.” said LuAnn

And I went, you know what?

If I had a nickel for every time in that previous 35 years, I had been doing work for interior designers as a trusted trade professional for them at WindowWorks for years. And I got my first designer account, I think, in 83 or 84. And designers would constantly ask me about, how do I tell somebody that and why would I do that, or they would just be venting as a colleague like this. And I’d be like, you can’t let them get away with that. Why are you accepting that?

“I had spent so many years talking with designers and understanding that it’s a very separate thing to be extremely talented at your craft and have no idea how to turn a profit doing it.” said LuAnn

 “I just love business. And I wasn’t gonna be one of 250,000 business podcasts. That’s it.” -Luann.

Worker Bee Roles

So often designers find themselves doing tasks as opposed to managing the tasks and delegating the tasks. This is what I call a worker bee role.

LuAnn is not a worker bee. She is a leader and an unabashedly unapologetic leader, which to be honest is a skill.

I know designers struggle when they fall into the worker bee roles. And it’s not just profitability on that one job, they’re losing the respect of the contractors they’re working with, which affects their pipeline and God forbid the homeowner hears about it who may even be questioning why they brought you on and so, therefore, you’re losing the potential for a testimonial, referrals, it just starting blooming out of control. I know designers don’t want to fall into those roles, but they don’t even recognize when they’re in it. I think in they’re minds they want to keep going and keep the ball rolling, so they go take this measurement, do that task, and I understand the reason, but LuAnn shares why they shouldn’t be doing that. 

LuAnn shares that the first domino that has to stay up, rather than fall is you have to know very clearly what is in your scope and what is not. LuAnn recognizes that this is an overused sentence. 

Your job is the expert guidance here. Your job isn’t picking up tiles, or figuring out how many tiles are needed.

It’s not your job. You’re not supposed to do it. You’re not doing it. But the thing is, it’s now come savior mode. LuAnn says that so many designers look at her and say, “I’m a people-pleaser. Okay, then add to it women get things done.”

The clearest thing to ask yourself is, is this my mess to clean up? Is this my mess to push through? Is this my thing to get going? And if it is, do it. And if it’s not, pass it off to the person whose it is. Advise your client, oh, Bob the tile guy is on vacation. They may ask you why you can’t figure it out. “Why would I figure it out for you Mrs. Smith? I don’t lay tile. People just need to understand, both consumers and designers, that there are simple agreements. Make them and stick to them.” says LuAnn

You must understand what you do with clarity because when the extras come along, you’re just like, boom, extra. And you can just say that you’re happy to do it, it’s XYZ more.  

When somebody balks at your price or the fee that you’ve given them, they don’t have any idea what goes into it. Educate them. 

Luxury Consumers

When you do have a client ask you for something in addition to the scope of work already laid out, no isn’t always the answer, says LuAnn.  When you’re dealing with a luxury consumer, just because they ask you for something doesn’t mean they expect it to be free or easy. The luxury consumer, if they want it, they will ask for it. They’re not worried about your feelings. And they will pay for it – when they’re asking, they’re expecting the price tag.

How to handle surprises that come up mid-project

When you have complete clarity on what you do, the process that you do it in, and the value that you bring by doing it, you will naturally pull back, you will naturally stop over-delivering for things that have nothing to do with your scope. 

“I hit designers with, so if you do three hours or five hours at no charge, you just took that money from your own family,” says LuAnn. 

She says to think that you are truly a business, and a business is in business for profitability. You can’t continue to bring your designs into the world, you can’t continue making those amazing, special spaces for people if you don’t stay profitable. 

Profitability in your business

If the lack of profitablity in your business feels like your clients’ fault or there’s no money in this industry and AI is killing it and Wayfair is killing it, “Own what you can own. Do it as well as you possibly can. Farm out and hire what you can’t. Get coaching and classes and experience and what you need. And you will change that business. It’s not even like if you do all of that, you’re still gonna get to look at me and say, it didn’t work. I promise you, it will work. It will work,” says LuAnn

With the resources that are available now, there’s almost no excuse. There’s Google, AI, podcasts, courses, everything!

Your lack of profitability usually just comes from not knowing, Not knowing what you don’t know. And taking charge of what you can take charge of and creating boundaries and sticking with them.