Things I was completely unprepared for when starting a business.

In this episode, I’m sharing the 10 most surprising lessons I learned while building my interior design business. From mastering outreach and lead generation to handling rejection and imposter syndrome, I get into the behind-the-scenes realities that most designers aren’t prepared for, but absolutely need to know.

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Transcript

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Mhm. Welcome to Designing Success from Study to Studio. I'm your host, Rhiannon Lee, founder of the Oleander Finch Design Studio. I've lived the transformation from study to studio and then stripped it bare and wrote down the framework so you don't have to overthink it. In this podcast, you can expect real talk with industry friends, community, connection, and actionable tips to help you conquer whatever's holding you back. Now let's get designing your own success today I've listed out 10 surprising things you'll need to be prepared for when building a successful interior design business. Some of these really I was not prepared for, or I did not realize until I can look back in hindsight. So if I can share some of those behind the scenes. Shocks that I had with you in preparation so that you can be prepared, be aware know that it's normal. It's very isolating out there when you're starting a business and think, is it just my business that doesn't get any clients? Or, I see people on Facebook forums all the time. I don't have a Facebook community, mainly because I don't really use Facebook. I don't really enjoy Facebook. Um, I do have it for my business so I can be tagged in community groups and so on. But other than that, I'm really not very active there. We have a thriving community inside of the framework where we chat and go through all of these questions all the time. And I did, when I started the podcast, think, Should I start a Facebook group? Because it does foster amazing connection and relationship around the world. But then I thought about it a little harder and thought, I think I'm just doing this because I see other people with large Facebook communities. And yes, it's absolutely something that can generate sales and you can showcase your offers and so on inside of these groups, but there's a lot of admin. There's a lot of trolls. It's a lot of people behaving badly on Facebook and it's just not really my jam. Again, designing your own success when I had a really good think about it, I was like, no, actually I will stick to my private group of supportive designers and avoid that Facebook group. But anyway, I have seen lately some things come up that people have been talking about. That's made me think, you know what, these are just not things we're always prepared for, or we're always even aware of. We're so naive in the beginning. You're like, yay, I've registered my business. I have a business. The clients will come and it's oh, yeah. Oh, no, they don't. I have to do like a whole bunch of stuff. So today we're going to talk about all the things that get overlooked, but they are really critical to running a successful interior design business. Let's get stuck in. Number one, outreach and lead generation. You need to go and seek out leads and network in weird places. You need to tell everybody, that you have a business. Every conversation you have needs to start with, Oh, you know, anyone who's renovating or building. Let me know reach out. I have a great deal at the moment. You need to tell the barista when you go get your coffee. If you go to the library, if you take the kids somewhere, talking about your business all the time at trade shows. Hi, I'm Rhiannon. I run Oleander Finch. I have a mentor program for interior designers. I help businesses start and scale. La la la La. Always elevated pitch, talking to people all of the time. You need to talk about it on your social media, private and professional. You sometimes need to talk about it in dms. I do not believe in, I know other mentors and other business coaches who get a lot of business through the DM approach. I will probably die on that hill. I don't like cold dms. But I am the most friendly person when you drop into my dms and you better believe if I have a service that will suit your needs, I'm gonna tell you all about it.'cause you just might not know. If you're into commercial spaces, you need to get out and talk about design from the commercial perspective, go and meet hoteliers, go into restaurants and speak to the owner, speak to whoever's in charge of the budget for design. You need to be really. proactive when it comes to practicing emailing potential collaborators, looking at ways that you can work together. Some of the best business people I know, their brain is just ticking constantly. And creatively all the time. Oh, how can I support your business? And you support mine? How can I leverage your audience? How can you, is there anything I can do for your business? That is the mindset of a successful business and far too many people. I said what I said already, far too many people aren't willing to do that work. So if you're somebody who thinks that you can sit back in business and it's just going to happen for you, you probably need a bit of a reality check. And certainly if you're in one of my coaching calls, I would be giving you a little bit of tough love there and saying if you want this to work, you've got to be willing to do the work for it. Okay, number two, bravely sharing your work before you actually have validation. I really struggled the first couple of mood boards I started sharing. I was like, Oh my God, people are going to be laughing at me. They're going to comment or nobody's going to comment. I haven't had a client that's paid me for this work yet. So I don't feel validated that I'm actually, that I even have a talent or that my eye for design isn't as good. Joke, I'm still studying. I knew I needed to post these sorts of projects and ideas online to practice that post because it felt so risky and so brave and I felt so unsure, but also, to build trust and visibility and showcase what I could do for my potential clients in the future. It took a lot of fake confidence and, inviting feedback to your art is really scary. So I think it's just good to know that you'll need to bravely share your work before you have validation, but you'll also need to show up and bravely share it more consistently and all of the time. So the sooner you can practice. And I do say, if you're studying and you're out there right now, and you're in an online class, A design school of some sort and you're waiting to open your Instagram account until you graduate or you're like, I don't want to tell anyone I'm going to do a business. My advice to you is to do it now. These are your practice pals. You might have 50 followers. Like I would rather bravely share my work for 50 followers than build my audience. I use all the tools available to you now to grow this big thing and then share it and be suddenly Petrified because there's a larger number of people that are following me So if you're waiting don't wait that is my business advice for absolutely everything just get started will always look back on things that you hesitated on and wish you'd done it sooner. This podcast is a great example. I was really nervous about the tech and it's actually so simple once you know what you're doing. And I waited 18 months longer than I should have to build a community. And this podcast has such beautiful connections. People drop in all the time and have conversations about specific elements to episodes that resonate with them. And it's my greatest joy. I absolutely love it. Okay, number three, consistently showing up online. Even if you're not a social media expert, and most of us aren't, when it comes to running your business or growing a business, you need to show up consistently on multiple different platforms. So Pinterest is key, I think showing up on Instagram, showing your face on social media. So people know who they're reaching out to and who they're buying from is really important. They need to see you often to remember who you are, what kind of services you have, and to resonate with you. I don't invest money in people that I don't know. Like every single time I've spent decent money or Even when I invest in services, I very rarely just open, I nearly said open the yellow pages, how old am I? I very rarely just go on Google and search for the service, like hairdresser, and just go, yeah, that'll do. Like I, I want a relationship with these people. I'll try them, but I will, fiercely stay with them and I will look for recommendations and I will ask people who they go to and what's, I'll Google what the salon looks like and I really do my research and that's exactly what these platforms can be for potential clients. It's a place where they research if you are the right fit way before, by the time you have a discovery call or an alignment call, 99 percent of the time in my experience that's about The actual project that they have and whether that is a good fit and your availability, it's very rarely about, tell me about you and your processes. Are you a good fit for the designer that I'm looking for? It almost always feels like they've done that research previously. And if you're not showing up on any platform and they can't do that research, they are less likely to reach out to you. Success is less about talent and more about consistency. Talent helps and you can't teach it. Unfortunately, you either have it or you don't, but showing up and doing the work every single day, especially when things aren't glamorous, when there are no clients, when you feel helpless in business, that matters so much more. That grit and tenacity will take you all of the way, that is all about resilience and building small wins over time and not just waiting for one big break or one viral reel or one thing to change everything but knowing that you have a plan that you want this business to survive and succeed and thrive and all those great adjectives is so much more you Important and being able to guide that consistency and know that you are taking forward steps with every single task that you do and holding your nerve when things don't feel right. The first half of this year was getting the bin. Honestly, everyone I spoke to was like, Oh my God, there's no clients, really struggling. I did so much. So many coaching calls with people saying, I need to create passive income. I need a digital product. I need this. It was a bit of panic. Cause it's I don't have subscription model income coming into my business or I don't know what to do. And we did a lot of work around that sort of stuff, but that's not all that will rescue you. Keeping. Focused and knowing that you can do a lot of stuff in a six month period where it's quieter. That will really promote efficiency and help you to bring on staff and do other stuff in the busier times. The thing is business is seasonal and there is gonna be seasons that feel like winter, and there's gonna be seasons that feel like summer and so not. Being afraid of the winter season and not packing in or running away or running in the opposite direction when it does come up, knowing it's just part of business is really. Beneficial. And it's something that's really surprised me. Obviously the first time I really started taking my business seriously, it had been registered and I'd been having one or two clients a month or so for a long time. But in 2020, it was like all in. And that was a season of extreme busyness with lots of clients because I created that signature service that was perfect for people in lockdown. Yeah, it's like that. With one experience and I think it shocked me since then there has been at least twice that I've experienced times that have been quite quiet concerningly so is that it? Did I drain every all the sap out of the tree and there's nothing left or you know will it come back around and it's perfectly normal to feel that feeling of oh my god I don't know how long I can hold on like this everyone thinks I'm killing it I'm not making any money like it can be really concerning. But it also helps you really appreciate those summer seasons where things, where deposits are flying at you, projects are, you're sinking your teeth into all the best projects you feel like, you're really like, everything's coming up millhouse, I've cracked the code. You really enjoy those because of those winter seasons. Speaking of seasons, I wish someone had told me there will be really lonely seasons. Entrepreneurship is so hard. So isolating, like there are times where you're working really long hours, your friends and family don't understand the grind. They don't have their own business finding peers and mentors to connect with, sometimes you don't have a mentor or a membership or a group to connect with. And so you're just showing up daily, doing all of the tasks, doing finance, and you just don't like some days you've realized when you go inside from this, for me inside from the studio, I haven't talked to anyone all day and I have really. Gone on to change my business so that I am dialing in on these group coaching calls and that I have built my own community of like minded designers that I get to really get to know so well inside of that group. And I love that. I also love. The business coaching, like it's dialing into someone else's business. It's something that I'm really passionate about. And I absolutely love helping people move forward and, work on their services, their offers, their messaging. I get to be creative. I get to bounce all that stuff around, but I also get to talk to another person. So when I look at my calendar and I have specific days that I do meetings, so I don't have to get dressed up every day. It's just on meeting days. And I bulk that activity all into those. And I really look forward to them. I'm like, yes, it's that. It's Tuesday and Thursday and I'm chatting all day and I absolutely love it. So there are ways to get around that, but I wasn't prepared for how lonely it is sometimes and how disconnecting it was to my friends who were like, They're busy at work, but they don't run their own business and running your own business can be all consuming. It's like having another child. It's 24 seven. You carry so much responsibility. The big wins are yours to celebrate. The losses are yours to absolutely go to pieces over. And you're very emotionally connected. This week I posted on Instagram that I had an appointment at 10am so I drove to another town where the appointment was and I went and got a coffee and I did all of my emails and got back to overnight online inquiry in the cafe and it was just like this mic drop moment where I was like I run my own business specifically for flexibility and freedom, and I never do this and working around other people and just having an hour of my day, even if that's I have to pick up the kids at 3. 30, even if I go to the cafe at 2 o'clock and walk from the cafe to the school, it's actually that long. soul replenishing. It's actually really good. You're around noise and other people and positive, you know, you have all these interactions and you're also doing some work. So my suggestion to you, if you feel like you are in that lonely season, what can you do about it? Plan to do some marketing. We talked about outreach and having to go and meet people and stuff. If you go to all the showrooms and talk to your trade suppliers and learn more about their product, honestly, showcasing, super important. So much product and understanding what the new collections look like. And what are the new trends and stuff will get you so many more clients because you're really then harvesting a lot of confidence in what you do and what's out there. So it's never wasted time. If you are feeling lonely, book a day in showrooms, book a day, go to a cafe for a little bit and don't just sit inside of your If you're in a studio or study or dining table, feeling that isolation, please, my DMS are always open on Instagram at oleander underscore and underscore Finch. Come and have a chat. What's going on in your business? I don't charge to chat. I'm happy always to hear from people. What are their challenges? Sometimes people drop in and talk to me and I'm like, that would make a great podcast episode. I think more people need to be thinking about that or I could help with that. So yeah, come and chat anytime. I The next thing that I guess didn't surprise me, I felt like I knew it was going to happen, but I really resisted it, and I did not want it to happen, is that you will make mistakes. And it's a good thing. Every mistake is a lesson in disguise. There's, I'm sure there's a thousand quotes about, I often will mix up my saying so and please don't quote any quotes or sayings inside of this podcast because they are generally just wrong. So I guess what I'm just trying to say is the sooner you release that control or the sooner you accept that mistakes are going to happen and that Of why we do what we do. We are project management and we are there to advocate for the homeowner and we are there to fix, put out spot fires and fix little things. And every project does have mistakes built in. It's just a thing that happens. And, they're really good. Like the sooner you have a big mistake, the sooner you learn from that and you never do it again. And there I've had many mistakes in my business, in different facets of my business, in my course business, in my mentorship business. There are things that I wish I did differently. Yeah, you just have to go with it and go, you know what? The key is not to fear the mistakes, but to be looking at the lessons or the outcomes of the learnings and be like, excellent. We're not going to do that again, but how could I have done it better? Post mortems on your first few, Projects are really important. And I know we feel like, Oh, I'll get to it later, but you need to do it directly after you finish that project while everything's fresh, because if you really want to self reflect and learn, you could pick so much out of each one. Or I would not tell them this. In that way, or I would have given them a little bit more notice on this, or I would like to be stronger in my invoicing. So I'm going to work on that for the next project. So there's things that failure and mistakes like failure is such a dirty word, isn't it? Like it makes it sound like no one's dying. It's not a big deal. And the mistakes are always fixable. It's just about presenting the options to the client and seeing how they want to proceed to fix. Do they want to pay extra money, remove it and start again or live with it and change some other elements. So Do not fear mistakes. They are a good thing. Okay. Imposter syndrome never really goes away. The good news is it gets better or your coping mechanisms and your tools become stronger. But even the most seasoned business owner experiences moments of doubt. If they're launching anything new, if they're taking a risk, which they, you do a lot in business. Every time something isn't, you don't feel at the top of your confidence game, imposter syndrome. Senses that and comes roaring in oh, who are you to do that? No one's gonna buy that. No one wants to listen to you say that. Like you, you shouldn't have an opinion on that is very normal stuff that we all get. And I say we, I absolutely get imposter syndrome all the time, especially around the mentorship. I mentor some women who've been doing this 20 years longer than I. And I have to constantly remind myself that I'm not teaching them to be a designer. So it's not about how I design versus how they design. I'm teaching them business and marketing of which I have absolutely 20 years more experience doing. So I have to reframe that for myself constantly because otherwise imposter syndrome will always get me. Cause I'm like, Oh my gosh, they're so talented. What am I doing being their coach? So yeah, you still definitely have to do work. And, Committing to actually learning some tools to deal with it is really important. Having a note in your notes app that's all full of kind words and full of things that people say about your work and about how you've changed things and good testimonials and stuff is really helpful. It can help reframe when you start. So I've got a lot of different things that I teach inside of my course about imposter syndrome. And for some people it's just, it's much stronger than for others and you are going to really battle it. So if that is you, if you really resonate with that, I would suggest that you actually look, like Google some TED Talks, watch some things, watch some experts, find someone that you resonate with and have a conversation with them about what they do because everybody is suffering it. Handling criticism and rejection. Not every picture presentation will land, and that's totally fine. Some concepts were just like, no thanks. I had a client recently who asked for all earthy tones and I went in with the most beautiful, I was obsessed with this concept and it was all this like gorgeous earthy tones and she was like, Oh, I hate that color. It looks like lamb's poo. I was like, Oh my God, I spent hours on this and you're telling me, and it's just knowing that she didn't make my work look like lamb poo. She asked for earthy tones and then it turns out the end winning concept was all blue and grey, Hampton's esque kind of thing. Nothing of what they actually briefed in. Anyway, that's another story for Scope Creep that I will get to another day. But, being able to handle criticism and rejection, So if you can not take it personally, understand that often it's a really a reflection of their ability to articulate in the brief in the first place. If you've gone down that way and that it doesn't connect, it's rarely because you're not capable of working to the client brief. It usually means that there's been a miscommunication or they were expecting something different. Or sometimes you're pushing them outside of their boundaries. I work with a lot of vanilla clients and it's really hard to get them to go with some wildly brave wallpaper or a shape that I'm obsessed with because I'm a designer and they're like no thank you just a rectangle coffee table for us and it is what it is I can't change that and I cannot take it personally and I just need to be able to learn and improve and re communicate get on the phone find out what it is about it that they do not like so that I don't repeat that and I don't Send them another concept with something else that's brave, but just a different shape. This one's a little bit hard, especially in the first probably two or three times that it happens, especially if you send a concept and it's one of your very first clients and they don't like anything about it. But even if they come back and they want four or five changes, you can think, Oh my God, I didn't do it right. I'm not good at this. How can they need four or five changes? And actually it could be because they're, you're undercharging and you have attracted a low ticket client and low ticket clients have the most, they are the neediest. They need the most changes. They're often the most insecure and indecisive. Their discovery calls will always say, I'm the worst at choosing, like run in the opposite direction, but also don't because you need to learn and you need to cut your teeth on these people. So that you know what you don't want to do. Handling criticism and rejection was something that surprised me how hurt I was. I'm actually pretty thick skinned usually, and especially my corporate job. And then in that first year of business, someone saying, I just don't think you, understood what we meant, and I just felt crushed because I really was priding myself in being able to meet these like client briefs and every now and again, it just doesn't. And then some people also just live for the drama, live to work with the designer back and forth and like to extend that. And sometimes You will get to a stage where you're like, I feel like I've given you 36 different options for your outdoor area and it's like a two by three meter area. I can't do that much. It's not, we're not changing anything structurally and outdoor furniture is outdoor furniture and you've given them every which way combination and they're just, Not willing to decide for whatever reason. Yeah, don't take it to heart. It's definitely not you, but always look at it. If you can always come at it through the eyes of if this wasn't my business and somebody came to me and said, I'm on my ninth iteration and they haven't even paid for edits and I've lost control. what should I do? What would you tell them to do? Because chances are you'd be like, okay, you need to send them an email and re establish boundaries. You need to list out what you have done, what was included and what you're prepared to do going forward. And that is just absolutely something that we have to do from time to time. And it's a really great way to handle criticism and rejection, especially, just be careful of the tone of the email, but definitely reiterating that you now understand. So if somebody could, it's not even a criticism, if somebody comes back and says that they didn't really get it, the pitch, the presentation, the concept, can we look at it in a different way? Just making sure that communication line stays open and that you don't just slam the laptop down and avoid them for a week or you don't go to bed and cry for a week. There are, there is support again, my DMs at oleander underscore and underscore Finch anytime, or chat to your colleagues, chat to others, go on. If you have a network around you, don't be afraid to share that stuff. Cause they will all say, Oh my God. Yes, me too. I remember, or I have that same thing right now, or I'm terrified of that. How are you going to deal with it? Tell me it's going to be okay. So I don't have to be terrified of it. Cause it's actually just a very normal part of business. No CEO runs a business and doesn't have a customer service or customer complaint process. That's because they're going to complain. And you're going to need to deal with it. So you can't hide from it, but it was something that it shocked me how upset I actually was when it happened. Another thing I was really not prepared for is exactly how many tasks would be assigned to me. I don't know why, but it didn't really hit home that I don't have a team. I don't have any staff. I don't have an IT department. I don't have a HR department. I don't have accounts payable or receivable. I don't have all of these things that I used to have when I would run massive projects and project development and launches and all of the things I was just in charge, negotiating with suppliers and doing my particular part of the puzzle. And I had this huge team around me and I would just brief something into the graphic designer and I would brief this and I would send the project off for testing to a group of people to test it before I would launch it. And I lost it all and having your own business meant that I went. I am the Swiss Army Knife of this business. I'm the designer, the marketer, the accountant, the project manager, the launch strategist, the business strategist, the, the IT department. I am training and development. I am every role that existed in my huge corporate company that I worked for, but I am all of it. And it's so overwhelming. And I needed to understand all of the aspects of my business in order to grow. Like you just have to, that is a thing I've spoken about that before. You have to know everything. You don't have to do everything. There is absolutely a way to outsource and there is a way to be really smart in doing that. But you do have to know all the things. And in the beginning you suddenly are doing all the things all at once. And I know, I absolutely know because I speak to hundreds of you a gear that the big one is. I did not. Pursue a career in interior designed to be a social media marketing manager. And I just, I see it all the time. It's just such an expectation of us as small business owners now. And it's exhausting. It's overwhelming. So many of us are not even doing it right. Like it's cool. I'm putting all this time and energy into my messaging sucks because I don't have any marketing degree. I don't know anything about marketing. I don't know what top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. bottom of funnel content is. I don't know what content pillars are. And even if I did know what they are, I'm not really strong in copywriting or I don't like showing up on social media. So there's all this and there's just one element and it is really overwhelming. So just know you're not alone if you're running a small business. More business. If you're starting a business, if you're scaling a business, we are all feeling this. And it feels so similar to me, like when you are trying to balance work and life in that you can sometimes feel there are seasons where you do both really mediocre. Like you're not all in with the kids and you're not all in with the business, and things are just like out of control. This is not supposed to be an advice column or me telling you what I think you should do, but just being aware that you are charged with so much more than you probably signed up for. And just knowing. That it's okay if you don't show up for a week. And it's okay if something has to be put aside. It's okay. Two weeks ago when my house was full of gastro and conjunctivitis and all kinds of illnesses, influenza has been through like, Oh, it was so much. I just didn't put a podcast episode out and that's okay. Like this is a free platform. This is my gift to everybody. And if sometimes you can't show up and bring anything, you're better off not to show up at all. Like we don't want to hear somebody suffering. There's no joy in that. And I'm just such a big advocate for recognizing when you are on the precipice. Don't even wait till you're on the precipice of burnout. Recognizing when there's a problem and look for the solution. You're juggling all the tasks. Excellent. Who can you work with that does it well? Who do you resonate with? Who can you reach out to say, Hey, I just feel like I need a half an hour of really focused, task oriented roadmap to how to get out of this nest. That I've built for myself. Like I need productivity tips. I need to understand what tech's available to me, how it can help. I'm ready to take that step. So if that sounds like you reach out anytime because it's just takes such it's a, it's an upfront energy effort and cost. You have to put in to learn some of these things, but I just look at even what these AI bots that I've built have done for framework is, it's easily 10 hours a week just by learning how to work with them. And who doesn't want 10 hours a week back even if that means that you have to spend it on other tasks you never signed up for. At least you've got it to spend. Charging what you're worth. It's so easy to undercharge especially in the beginning but I didn't think, I didn't anticipate pricing would be such an always issue. And when I say always issue. I just mean that for so long in my business, I felt like I didn't have transparency on what other people did. And they don't really teach it to you when you learn to be a designer. And a lot of it was guesswork when it shouldn't have been. So I felt like learning to price confidently based on my value was something that didn't come naturally. It took a lot of time and knowing how to say no to lowball offers or people who were like, Oh yeah, actually I was hoping to only spend X Amount on this project, but they're bringing me a project that I know they need to spend$40,000 on this bathroom anyway with all the contractors. Why would I wanna do it for 400? So just starting to understand my worth and pushing back was something that I was not prepared for. I'd always just, I'd always been a great sales person in my previous job, but the responsibility of setting the prices didn't fall on me. So I always found out like that's just what an airfare costs. Like you want it or you don't want it. I've got the seats for you. So I had a lot of confidence from that perspective, but I lost a lot of confidence when I started my own business around charging my own worth because of aforementioned imposter syndrome and other things. I was like, Oh, I don't know and because I love doing it, I was like, I'd do it for free. So not great, not very business savvy, but we learn. And obviously I had a totally different strategy during COVID. I just wanted to get volume and practice. Once I had that, and it was about six months. My pricing went from what I was charging at that sort of six month launch to immediately 16 times that like, I just suddenly was like, this is what I cost to work with and people were paying it. No problems. So clearly I was undercharging, I had a strategy, but if you are worried that you're undercharging, then you almost certainly are. And if you wanna know how to check it, double it on the next. Discovery call and see what happens. But also be more strategic than that. Come and talk to someone else again. As I say, I shouldn't put stuff like that out in public. That's not actually the way to work out your pricing, your value, what's going on in the industry and what sort of service offering you have and what you should be charging for that. Like it fascinates me that people don't just at least every business owner should have a one hour skill session with a coach who does this for other interior designers day in and day out. One hour costs you 495. It's completely tax. You can ask all of the questions. It just, it fascinates me why people hold off for so long. Just working with someone for an hour is not having a business coach. It's not an ongoing expense. It's not even a paid membership. It's just going, can you run your eyes over this? What do you say are the problems? Where should my pricing be at? This is my experience. This is where I want to go. This is what I want to make a year. Let them do the work. We do it all the time. This is what we do. And lastly, I will leave you with this. You don't need to know it all or do it all in the first year. Like I see girls come into the framework and they're like, Oh my God, there's so much, like there's no timeline on business. I hope that your business runs for 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, however long you want it to run. I'm absolutely gobsmacked that my business is six years old in two months time. I'm like, what even? I don't know. I always thought it would be a long game, but then I also read all the statistics. No one makes it to three years. Nobody makes it to five years. Like business is going to go under. You're going to get burnt out. You're not going to love it. I love it more now than I ever did. Like it's. It's crazy fun this business thing and I have so much to do and so much to learn and it's none of the stuff that I did back then or learned back then and I thought I needed to do it all. I needed to have a lead magnet. I needed to have a funnel. I need to have a working lead generation. I need to have revenue diversity and a digital product and it's Oh my God, if you had all of that stuff in the first year or two, it would be really lame because you would not have the. experience or knowledge to make it really awesome and the time to dedicate to it. Like it's okay to just wait and see what your audience needs from you and then build something that they're obsessed with. Anyway, I could get on a massive tangent again and go into like coach mode. But just know there's going to be a year for setup and a year for learning and a year for thinking, I don't have a clue what's going on here. And then going, Oh my God, I'm like in my CEO era right now. I'm outsourcing. I'm starting to look at staffing. I'm, I know my messaging, my marketing I'm investing in coaches and marketing and, I've got money to play with to get a better result and that is really fun. And then yeah, it just, it gets better and better, but it doesn't all have to be done. And I think we put all this pressure Oh, I've got, I want to do this and I want to do that. And I want to do great. If you don't have to do it in Q1 of year one, that's ridiculous. So that is my end message to you is that you don't need to know it all. You can learn on the job. It's okay to say to someone, Oh, I'm not really sure. Let me park it. I'll get back to you. I'm going to research that. I'd like to know more about it myself. Or, it's just totally fine to not have all the answers. What a boring world we would be in if everyone knew everything and there was no growth and learning to be had. Speaking of that exact thing, I am interviewing Gaylene from Gaylene Drew Designs again for next Thursday's episode. We spoke to her at the end of her first year of business and now she's in her second year of business. There's been a real shift. So she's moved away from that foundation stuff and setting up documentation and into the area in which she is growing and learning. And being able to speak to her. It's like a cool little experiment where we can check in every year and see that growth because she had a lot to say about what it's really like in that second year. Now that she's with clients and she's got some projects and she's had some of those projects published and things are really taking off for Galen Drew Designs. So you're not going to want to miss that chat. It was a great one and I will see you on Thursday. Bye for now. That wraps up another episode of Designing Success from Study to Studio. Thanks for lending me your ears. Remember, progress over perfection is the key. If you found value in today's episode, go ahead and hit subscribe or share it with a friend. Your feedback means so much to me and it helps me improve, but it also helps this podcast reach more emerging and evolving designers. For your daily dose of design business tips and to get a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes, follow at oleander underscore and underscore finch on Instagram. You'll find tons of resources available at www. oleanderandfinch. com to support you on your journey. Remember, this is your path, your vision, your future, and your business. Now let's get out there and start designing your success Mhm.