Gail Doby and Erin Weir interview influential people in the interior design industry, business, and entrepreneurs
Creative Genius Podcast
Claim This Podcastby Gail Doby & Erin Weir
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Gail Doby and Erin Weir interview influential people in the interior design industry, business, and entrepreneurs
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Recent Episodes
February 3, 2026
Why are Women so Hard on Each Other? (Ann Feldstein)
<p>In this episode, Gail Doby welcomes Ann Feldstein, a 25-year industry veteran and the force behind Moxie Marketing. Ann reflects on her journey from working on the De Beers “Diamonds are Forever” campaign to serving as Vice President of Communications at Kravet before launching her own agency ten years ago.</p> <p>The heart of the discussion focuses on Ann’s keynote research into why women often harbor judgment toward one another. They explore internalized misogyny—the unconscious adoption of sexist attitudes—and how it manifests in everything from holiday clean-up expectations to judgments about makeup and parenting. Ann also breaks down the “fairy tale complex,” explaining how classic stories like Cinderella taught young girls to view other women primarily as competition for male attention. Tune in for this conversation that is always relevant, but perhaps even more so in the female-dominated industry of interior design.</p> <p>In this episode, you’ll hear about:</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li><strong>The Evolution of a Career:</strong> Ann’s 15-year tenure at Kravet and her transition to founding Moxie Marketing, which exclusively serves the interior design space.</li> <li><strong>The “Karen” Label:</strong> How modern slang is used to silence women who speak up when they are unhappy or mistreated.</li> <li><strong>Double Standards in Society:</strong> The contrast between how society shames young girls for their pop star fandom while celebrating men for their passion for sports teams.</li> <li><strong>The Perfectionism Trap:</strong> Why women are often hesitant to take risks because they haven’t been taught that it is okay to fail or make mistakes.</li> <li><strong>The Power of Succession:</strong> Ann’s observation that many women build thriving businesses but fail to create a succession plan, missing out on passive revenue and a lasting legacy.</li> <li><strong>The Highlights of the Design Industry: </strong>How Gail’s experience with design clients has been primarily positive, building communities of women who are happy to collaborate instead of compete.</li> </ul> <p>If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: <a href="https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e10-shownotes">https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e10-shownotes</a></p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w6Ze2vOavk </div> </figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-episode-transcript">Episode Transcript</h2> <p><strong>Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.</strong></p> <details class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"> <summary>Click to show transcript</summary> <p>And it’s so exciting to have you on the Creative Genius podcast and I am really happy to have you here today.</p> <p>Well, thank you so much for inviting me to be on. I’m a huge fan of The Pearl Collective and your podcast, and I’m so honored to be on.</p> <p>Well, thank you for being here. Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about your background and how you got into the industry to begin with.</p> <p>Great. This month is actually 25 years for me in the industry. I started my career at JWT and I worked on the De Beers Diamonds campaign and that was an interesting time. And then I went to a smaller boutique firm and I worked on other luxury brands. And then I met someone and fell in love and didn’t want to work agency hours.</p> <p>And I saw that Cravet was looking for a marketing person and I applied and I hit it off with the team and I really liked the family and they offered me a position. And it was such an interesting time for me because it was a real learning curve. And here I thought I was like sort of set in my career and I had this new learning experience. And I fully admit as a marketing person, it probably took me a good year or two to fully understand</p> <p>the industry works and how best to serve the interior designers. I was at Kravat for 15 years and in 2015 I stepped down as the vice president of communications and I opened Moxie Marketing and we just celebrated 10 years. Yes, 10 years. Time really does fly. At Moxie we work with brands and interior designers, anyone in the interior design space.</p> <p>We do only take on clients in the interior design space because that is really where my experience is. And I work with brands on marketing and sales. I work with designers on communications plans, of course, PR, events, social media, everything to help designers and brands grow their business.</p> <p>Hmm, how exciting. Well, and I know you’re working with some people that I happen to know and love well. So that’s really exciting. And I’m really happy to know you because I think in this industry, it’s really important to have people that grasp what we do and understand the complexities of this business because it is not a normal animal. No.</p> <p>It is not.</p> <p>It isn’t. And I think that one of the things that’s so hard is trying to find somebody who can adapt to the changing industry. And I think you have done that really well.</p> <p>Thank you. I’ve worked really hard at that and trying to understand the nuances of everyone’s business, not just the brands, not just the interior designers. I believe we all play an important part in the ecosystem of interior design. I also think it’s such a special industry. That’s one of the things that I did notice right away when I started 25 years ago. People were so willing to help each other.</p> <p>And it really touched me in that regard. And then at Cravet, I got to work on the Ronald McDonald House project. And it was just wonderful to see all of my colleagues come together, competitors, other designers. Everyone came together for this really special cause. And I think designers and the industry in general are just incredibly giving.</p> <p>Mm-hmm. I love that part of the industry too. Well, let’s talk about you a little bit. I’d love to know what your guilty pleasure is.</p> <p>what is my guilty pleasure? I probably have a few. I love a day just sitting on the sofa with my dogs and the fire going and some good food and good Netflix and cozy pajamas and maybe a nice cocktail or reading a good book. That’s definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. I’m a huge foodie. So I don’t know if I would say that’s a guilty pleasure. To me, food is life.</p> <p>Yeah, I do enjoy my food and I love trying new food and cooking and all the things related to food. I even like grocery shopping.</p> <p>that’s, that’s alien to me. I haven’t been in a grocery store in years. My husband does all the grocery.</p> <p>I do love it, not at the holidays. And I like to be there as soon as they open first thing in the morning, but I do enjoy grocery shopping.</p> <p>is so interesting. I’ve never heard anybody say that. There’s something wrong with you,</p> <p>I know I don’t love regular shopping unless I’m traveling but grocery shopping it’s my happy place</p> <p>my gosh, that’s so funny. I don’t even cook anymore, so I don’t relate at all. All right, well, who would you take with you to a desert island, say you’re stranded?</p> <p>Well, I definitely would bring my dogs. And then, you know, I think there’s a few different people. My best friend, because we could talk about anything till the cows come home. I’d love it if it was my mom, but she’s not with us anymore. You know, someone that’s interesting and then someone that would help me not go stir crazy as someone with ADHD who’s always on the move, even though I’m sure I love my relaxing time, someone that could keep me sane.</p> <p>I love that. Well, let’s talk about one of your favorite topics. you had come to us a while back and had mentioned that you’d love to be speaking on this topic. And at the time, we weren’t ready to have a conversation yet because we we already had everything booked for the podcast. But I think it’s such an important topic. And I think that today, let’s talk about why women are so hard on women.</p> <p>And I’m so curious, what prompted your passion for this topic?</p> <p>So it was really interesting. A couple of years ago, I was having dinner with one of my girlfriends and she’s a mentor to me. She’s older than I am. She is also in marketing. And since I met her, ironically through a crab, it when I first started, we just clicked and she has been a terrific mentor to me and a dear friend. And she comes over on Christmas Eve. She spends Christmas Eve with my family. And a couple of years ago, we were celebrating her birthday at dinner and another friend of hers had</p> <p>come by for drinks. And I just kind of casually mentioned that I think women are really hard on other women. And the two of them did not take it well. And the other woman, the friend, was actually in the process of being let go from her job. And she was putting it all on a woman and the reason she was being fired. And their reaction was so strong and took me by such surprise.</p> <p>I really, it kind of just gave me pause and I started looking into it. I just started doing research. As I mentioned, I do have ADHD. So, you know, my brain gets something and it just keeps going. And then about six months later, I was talking to a friend of mine, Sarah Kravitz actually, and I told her about what had happened. And she was the one that said to me, you know, and you’re really passionate about this. Like, I think there’s something you could do with it.</p> <p>A couple of months later then she invited me to kick off Cravett’s Women’s Initiative Network. And it goes out to all of the female employees. It’s a resource group for them for if they need support, coaching, anything like that. And I was their inaugural keynote speaker. And I put together a deck and it was supported by research from Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, you name it.</p> <p>it wasn’t just my thoughts and opinions and it was such a great presentation and the women, were women in the building and then, everybody else was remote because as you know, they have showrooms and, and spaces all around. and once the presentation ended, like the women there, they stayed and they just wanted to talk about it and talk about it. And it was really eye opening.</p> <p>And even since then, I’ve just gathered so much more research about it. And I do think it’s a very important topic because there’s something called internalized misogyny. I think a lot of women and myself at times have had it and we don’t realize it. And it could be as simple as, you grew up and your mom told you never to leave the house without makeup on.</p> <p>I’m not a huge makeup person. My mother didn’t wear a lot of makeup except for lipstick. And I guess I followed in her footsteps. But for some people, if they feel that if they were taught you shouldn’t leave the house without makeup and they see a woman who’s left the house without makeup, there’s judgment there. Something as simple as that. And that’s obviously a very simple example. And even giving that example, the amount of women that said to me in the presentation, like,</p> <p>Interesting.</p> <p>my God, my mom told me never to leave the house without lipstick or my mom told me I, you know, I should always have my hair done or something like that. And obviously that’s, you know, kind of at the basic level. But another example is the holidays come up. How often do you see that the dinner wraps up and the men retreat to watch TV or play football and the women clean up? And if one or two women don’t clean up and they go to relax or they go do something,</p> <p>there’s often judgment and the judgment is typically from the other women more so than from the men.</p> <p>Interesting. hmm, okay. So that is so fascinating. It’s so funny that you say you shouldn’t leave the house without makeup and my mother would say, don’t leave the house with makeup on. didn’t want us to wear makeup when we were growing up. And I think because I grew up in such a progressive household with a mother who was very, I don’t know, she was very different and she was quite a bit older.</p> <p>And so she, I remember seeing pictures of her wearing jeans in the 20s and 30s. She was born in 1913. So it very, I can’t even believe that 112 years old, but is what she would have been. But she was just so anti all of that. And she was such a, I guess a feminist at an early age. She did not wear makeup. She did not wear a bra.</p> <p>She did not do a lot of things. So she was, oh my gosh, she was so anti having these rules, even though she was really in a more traditional roles of female. So this is really interesting to me because I really hadn’t thought about this in recent years. And it’s probably because I’ve had such a different background or I had a mother who had a different opinion growing up.</p> <p>Which I think is incredible. I mean for my my mom she was in some ways very traditional and other ways Bucked tradition like she always told me never rely on a man for money always have your own money and Margaret always work But at the same time she always she was a caregiver and she taught me to be a caregiver Makeup wasn’t important to her, but she did always you know when she was younger wear her lipstick and she always liked to look neat and tidy</p> <p>And there’s no doubt that she was my idol, is my idol, will always be the most important person in my life, but she definitely treated me differently than she treated my brother. The expectation on me as a woman was significantly harder, I should say, than what my brother’s was. And, you know, we did talk about it in her later years. We did talk about it. And, you know, she was one of seven and</p> <p>That was how she grew up. She left school. My mom had me later in life. So she had me at 44 years old and she was born in 1926. And when she was 14, she had to leave school to take care of her younger siblings. And so that’s where she got her caregiver part about her. And she grew up in Scotland in a very traditional way where the women did all the work and they did all the cooking and the cleaning. And the men tended the fires.</p> <p>whatever. And that was, it was how I grew up. And until I got old enough to be like, hey, this isn’t like, I don’t understand, like, why is this expected of me? And it’s not expected of my brother. And then because of that, did just start to, it’s just something I’ve always kind of paid attention to. And now work really hard to</p> <p>not judge other women if their choices are different than mine.</p> <p>Hmm, really interesting. Well, I’m just so fascinated by all this. And first of all, we have so much more in common than I realized. My mother had me when she was 42 and a half. So she was much older when she had both my sister and me, and I’m the youngest. But I don’t know. It’s so interesting because I didn’t grow up with the traditional background in some ways, but in some ways I did.</p> <p>I think I was very conflicted growing up and I really have never thought about the topic the way you’re bringing it to me today. So I’m fascinated to know some more. Now I was listening or looking at this quote that you shared from the Barbie movie. Women hate women and men hate women. It’s the only thing we agree on. Do you really believe that’s true?</p> <p>think it’s true to some extent, I do. And there’s a lot of research to support it. The Barbie movie was such a great example of women being overlooked. mean, that was the most successful movie. That year in particular, the economy thrived thanks to Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and the Barbie movie. And women didn’t get the credit that they deserve. The director didn’t get any credit.</p> <p>the lead actress didn’t get any credit like where they didn’t they weren’t nominated for Oscars. I should be more specific in regards to the Barbie movie. And even with the success of the Barbie movie, there was a quote in I think Rolling Stone. It was like, we should make more movies about toys. No, we should make more movies about women. It wasn’t that the Barbie movie was successful because it was about Barbie. was it was successful because it was about women and</p> <p>As a marketer, know, I look at everything from a marketing lens and something that has always stuck out to me that really aggravated me. And I would say I didn’t have the words or the tools to articulate it correctly is we shame young girls for their fandom of the Jonas Brothers or Taylor Swift or whomever, but middle-aged grown men will lose their minds if their sports team doesn’t win. They’ll spend thousands of dollars.</p> <p>on tickets, they will wear the same socks or whatever their suspicions are. And that’s completely acceptable behavior by a 45-year-old man. But we shame young girls who are excited to see Taylor Swift or the Jonas Brothers. It’s the same thing to me. And that’s the way society and the media portray things. And I think we’re incredibly hard on young women.</p> <p>I think we’re incredibly hard on women in general, but young women, or let me rephrase this, girls that are just coming into their own and learning to enjoy and like things and are excited about that. I feel that there’s a, like, you we diminish it instead of embracing it.</p> <p>Well, talk to me about the fairy tale complex. How is that manifested as self in society and tell us what that really is.</p> <p>So again, that was something I did a lot of research and just off the top of your head, some of the most notable ones, Cinderella, Snow White. It’s all about, mean, Cinderella is a great example. The stepmother and the stepdaughters don’t like Cinderella because she’s too pretty. And the whole story is, you know, because the prince likes Cinderella. So the messaging that young girls receive is that other women are competition. And</p> <p>at my age, that was a lot of the messaging growing up. well, that one’s really pretty. So she’s going to get all the boys or she’s going to get all the attention. And, the fairy tales reflect that they’re rarely about for women or for girls, excuse me, they’re rarely about friendship and camaraderie and coming together. But the messaging for boys is different. But for girls, it’s always someone</p> <p>The girl has something and they don’t like her because she has something where, whether it’s looks or talent or something. And then they’re envious of her. And that’s the messaging that these young girls are receiving when they’re being read fairy tales or watching Disney movies.</p> <p>Interesting. And you think that’s true even today in some of newer movies.</p> <p>think it’s less true or they’ve, they’re starting to explore other storylines. Like there’s the, the one that I love from Disney is the young Scottish girl and it’s all about her strength and her individuality. But I mean, that is a newer movie. I think that’s within the past 10 years. So if you look at, the, the, I don’t know if you would say the traditional ones are the ones that have been around for decades, you know, Snow White, it’s the woman that</p> <p>wants to take her and you know, it’s always about another woman being the competition. And oftentimes a young woman, a young girl being the competition.</p> <p>You know, it’s interesting too, because I think back to some of the different movies that I’ve seen over the decades, and some of those were about mean girls. And there are so many examples of the mean girls, and I’ve experienced that growing up myself. And I still to this day occasionally have instances where people behave that way. And I’m just stunned at that, at how cruel people can be.</p> <p>feel the same way. I think, I think right now in particular, we live in a society where it’s becoming more and more acceptable to be rude and hard on women. We don’t need to get political, but we know that it’s happening at the top. So people feel very freely to disrespect and be rude to women. One of the things that really, really annoys me is when you call someone a Karen, because I think it’s just a way to keep women quiet, right?</p> <p>if a woman is complaining, if she wants to talk to a manager or she’s unhappy with someone or something or a service, instead of being like, well, let’s hear what the woman has to say, perhaps it’s valid, we call her a Karen. And it, to me, it’s just another way to silence women. Women should be able to speak if they’re unhappy, if they feel mistreated, you know, do some people take it to the next level and take advantage? Of course that happens with men and women. But I think</p> <p>we’re so quick to call women a Karen or, you know, talk about why they’re complaining. And to me, that’s just silencing women. And I think we should be doing the opposite.</p> <p>Yeah, well, that’s a very judgmental thing to put a label on that. And I haven’t known a lot of Karens and I like them. Yeah. And so that’s annoying to me that we have really made that a negative name too.</p> <p>Me too.</p> <p>I agree. Yeah. I do. I think for most women, you know, you have your group of girlfriends or your support. And I do think most women are great. Right. Let’s let me put it that way. And that’s why this topic I think is important. It’s asking you to take a step back and say, do I judge that person for their choices, whether it’s because they don’t wear makeup or they didn’t get married or they only had one child or they had three or four.</p> <p>children. while I’m not a mom, I do see a lot of the judgment around mothers. Did you breastfeed? you went back to work so quickly. you’re staying home. Like, it doesn’t seem like anything women do is the right choice to someone anyway.</p> <p>Sure, Well, yeah, and maybe because I don’t have kids either. And for me, I’ve always made that decision to, for the most part, I’ve run a business for many, many years. So it’s almost like that’s a negative thing, but I made that choice very deliberately. And it’s interesting, but I’m sure that that has gotten some quiet judgment from a lot of people too, because that was not my choice to have a family.</p> <p>I think it’s very easy to put women in a box. she’s not a mother or they didn’t have children. It’s just, I think another way to divide us. think women are incredibly smart. They are natural leaders. They know how to handle a crisis. And I think what makes women different than most men is that women, when making decisions, they think about how it’ll affect everybody in their life, not just themselves. So when women make decisions, it’s almost like a</p> <p>collective, like this is what’s best for everyone, whether it’s a work situation, a family situation. Like I think they see a larger picture versus just saying this is a good decision for me. And I think men have can have a very singular focus. And, and if you look at the countries that have female leadership, they are thriving and they’re they’re doing very well. And I</p> <p>And this goes to the topic where I think if women could support other women, I think we would just have a much better society. And I think we could do more. I think we could rule the world to be quite honest with you, but let’s start with our local governments.</p> <p>Well, that’s a good point. You had a quote that you were sharing in your deck about America, for error, saying something that I think is true and it’s sad at the same time. And she said, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong. And that statement is very unsettling to me. And</p> <p>We both have seen a lot of people struggling with imposter syndrome and perfectionism. That’s just something I see all the time in coaching. Why do think this is so prevalent and how do we break this cycle?</p> <p>Well, I think one, that quote was fantastic and really spoke to me. And I think a lot of it has to do with women and our image. Let’s start with that. mean, the messaging that I received from when I was a little girl is I’m not thin enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not tall enough. I’m not blonde enough. I’m not enough of anything. Right. And no matter how hard I work, I’m never I’m never going to look like, you know, growing up, it was Farrah Fawcett or</p> <p>Heather Locklear or insert whomever they were. I mean, honestly, industries would collapse if women started to love themselves as they are right now versus wanting to be thinner, wanting to not have wrinkles. And I’m guilty of all of it. So I’m not saying I’m above anything. But I do think a lot of women suffer from imposter syndrome. And I think if you’re bombarded from when you’re born with images of something you don’t look like or is not obtainable,</p> <p>it’s hard to feel truly confident.</p> <p>Yeah, it’s true. It’s interesting too, because our industry is mostly women. And I have some of the most amazing women as clients. And when I look at the people that come into our community and see how incredibly capable they are, and how they’re running amazing businesses, and our goal is always to help them be better at that business and</p> <p>to have the ability to have a legacy and to live financially free. Those things are our goals for our clients. And when I see the level of skill and compassion and care and intelligence that these women have, it just gives me lot of confidence about hopefully the next generation will also pick up on that and take that further because we need a big change.</p> <p>I do agree with that. And I love that your team is three strong women and of course, and one strong man. And you’re helping these women, mostly women. I know you also have male clients grow their business and be successful and have a succession planned. It’s one of the things that I was surprised at a couple of years ago. As you know, I work with Duane Bergman and he did a little bit of a reverse.</p> <p>succession plan. And I was talking to some designers in Paris and they were all women and they all had thriving businesses. none of them had a succession plan in place. And one of the women I was speaking to was in her 70s. And I’m like, you’ve built this amazing business for decades, and you’re just going to let it go. And I was like, well, first of all, you can have passive revenue, right, right there. And then you’re going to go into</p> <p>your retirement with passive revenue, you’ve created a brand and that will continue to grow and that can be your legacy. And they just hadn’t thought that way. They just thought this was a business that they created and when they were ready to retire, the business would close. And that was so sad for me. And I ended up giving a talk at ADAC about succession planning. And, you know, it’s something that I</p> <p>I talk about more and I know you talk about with your clients. And I do think it’s a very important topic. And I think it’s something that not everyone has thought about or knows how to do. And they maybe don’t even realize why having a succession plan is important to them.</p> <p>Yes, I agree with that. And we have helped six companies exit so far. And we have worked with companies that are starting to build their succession plan. And that is so critical. And you have to do that whether you are 70 or whether you’re 30 building your business, you should be thinking about that future and about how you build that. So I think it’s important to think about that. We can have a whole other podcast talking about succession planning.</p> <p>Let’s talk about why you think women are so hesitant to support other women. And I see the opposite too. I see a lot of people willing to support.</p> <p>I do agree with that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.</p> <p>no worries. Yeah. And what’s interesting too is that some of these people that I’m working with right now, there’s still a little bit of hesitance. Even though they’re willing to help each other, there’s always a little bit of hesitance about, I can’t give it all away because if I do, then they’re afraid they’re going to lose something. So what are they afraid of losing?</p> <p>Well, again, I think it goes back to the messaging that they’ve received their entire life in is that other women are competition. It started as other girls are competition. And so it takes a lot of unlearning. And I include myself in that. And a lot of it is having the attitude of there’s more than enough business for everyone. And the right client will find you or you’ll find the right client.</p> <p>When I was leaving Cravet and starting on my own, Elizabeth Blitzer of Blitzer & Co. was very helpful to me and she’s terrific. She’s just fantastic. What an amazing woman that she is. And she never once held back. She gave me everything I needed to be successful. She gave me a copy of her contract. She referred people to me and I said to her, like, are you sure that it’s like, it’s not saturated and there’ll be enough work? And she said, Anne,</p> <p>there’s more than enough business for everyone. And to me, she was confident enough to know that we come to the table with different skill sets and not everyone that’s right for me is going to be right for her and vice versa. And, I’ve, I’ve tried to always be that way. And of course there’s times where I have my doubt or the imposter syndrome and, and such. but it is really sort of like a mindset of just because someone has something,</p> <p>doesn’t make you less of a person. Or it doesn’t take away from what I’m doing. If someone signs another client and I didn’t or something along those lines.</p> <p>Well, the other thing that I think is interesting, and this is very true, is women do tend to compare themselves to others. And I don’t think that’s just women. I do think most people compare themselves to other people. And I wonder why that is so wired into our behavior.</p> <p>I think a lot of it has to do from big businesses wanting to profit. If you’re continuing to be insecure, you’re going to keep purchasing things to be able to feel good about it. I mean, we do live in a capitalist society and we’re always looking for the next thing. even now there’s little baboos, if I’m even pronouncing that correctly, that there’s a whole group of not children, adults that need these, in my opinion, ugly stuffed animals on their back.</p> <p>That’s just my personal opinion. you know, I think it’s just a part of our conditioning in society. I don’t think I think society benefits when we’re not confident, because then we know that we’re confident we don’t need the la boo boo or the latest bag or the latest anything. And that’s not that’s not good for business.</p> <p>So interesting, yes. That is a very interesting philosophy because if it is really about commercialism then why are we falling into that and becoming so enamored with whatever is out on social media or maybe in advertising, why are we falling for that?</p> <p>I think in some capacity, it speaks to us, right? So whether it’s even the people on the other end that are like, I’m vegan or I don’t, know, like to the extremes, it’s identifying and possibly even belonging to something, right? Even if it’s not the masses, it’s something on the smaller side. And it’s not easy to overcome. And as a marketer, the amount of times I fall for marketing,</p> <p>is, you know, I and sometimes it’s just because I’m like, wow, that’s really great marketing and it got me and then there’s other times where it’s like, nope, I just fell for it. Hook line and sinker. I’ve gotten better and I’m trying to be very conscious of what I spend and where I spend now just because of where our country is now. But it’s it’s not easy. And as I said, everything I had said earlier about, you know, our hair, our nails are</p> <p>Not wanting wrinkles, all of that. I feel that pressure as well. Not to the extreme that some do where they have plastic surgery or they really loathe themselves. I’m not that extreme. But, you know, I do still dye my hair. I still get my nails done. I wear makeup. Not that often, but I wear makeup.</p> <p>Sure</p> <p>Well, I think if it’s motivated because you just want to feel and look your best, that’s one thing. But if you’re doing it to compare yourself to others or because you feel less than if you’re not doing those things, then that’s a concern. So it really, to me, has to do with the motivation. Is it internal or external? If you’re looking for external validation of who you are because of what you do and what you wear, how you behave, what you belong to, all those different things.</p> <p>then that’s like a bottomless pit. You can never, ever get enough if you’re looking for external validation.</p> <p>I do agree with that. And that’s why I think this topic is so important for women. In addition to being able to come together and having the support of each other, I think it does help you realize, are you just looking for external validation? Are you able to get that validation internally? Like, that’s another reason why I think it’s such an important topic. Because if you realize just how much you are marketed to, to not like yourself, I think that helps you like yourself.</p> <p>when you’re like, hey, I’m actually not so bad. My confidence level now that I’m over 50, I wish I had this confidence when I was younger. I wish I had it. And I guess part of it has to do with age where you really don’t care what other people think. But I wish I had the confidence just 10 years ago that I have now.</p> <p>Well, I don’t think you can have that confidence without having many experiences that give you the, maybe that assurance that you’re on the right track. But the reality is too, we have to make a lot of mistakes to get to where we are. And if you don’t make mistakes, then you really aren’t pushing yourself enough to test to see what your capacity is. So</p> <p>true.</p> <p>I just really hope that all the people listening will really think about the fact that it’s really about how you feel about yourself that matters. It’s not what other people think about you, because if you take that in and let other people hurt your feelings or make you feel bad about yourself, that is a choice that you don’t have to let that bother you. You can let that go. And I think it’s really important for us to</p> <p>encourage people to be self motivated and self, not self judging, but really just bolster yourself. And remember that you’ve got enough and you are enough and maybe you’re not perfect, but you’re learning every day.</p> <p>You made such a good point. And I think especially for women, we’re not told that it’s okay to make mistakes or fail. I know I wasn’t, I was not, it had to be perfect. It had to be right. The first time failure or mistakes just wasn’t widely accepted. And I even had a supervisor that said, I don’t, I don’t do anything unless I know it’ll be successful. Like, and</p> <p>And that shaped me. now I’m much more like, yes, okay, if I make a mistake, I’m a human being. I’ve made a mistake. I will learn from it. Most importantly, learn from it and then correct it and move on. Nothing is most likely, it’s not earth shattering or life changing. It’s just a mistake. And I think for women, and I did actually just read an article on this,</p> <p>Women are so hesitant to make a mistake that they don’t put themselves in a position to make a mistake. So they’re not taking the risk.</p> <p>Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, and risk is what it takes to be successful in life. And also, if you’re an entrepreneur, and we happen to have a lot of entrepreneurs that are in our community, but you cannot do it the safe way. You have to make mistakes.</p> <p>I agree. And I think that’s a message that needs to be spread loud and wide, especially for women. And then I think you just you learn so much from your mistakes. I do remember someone saying to me or actually maybe it was something I read it was you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.</p> <p>Sure, you do. And they’re painful. It’s not fun to go through and make mistakes. But by the same token, if you’re not making a mistake, you’re playing it way too safe.</p> <p>That I do agree. So I think that’s messaging that women do need to hear more of. That it’s okay to make a mistake, it’s okay to take a risk, and it’s okay to have egg on your face, learn from it and move on.</p> <p>Sure, absolutely. Well, I love this quote of yours where you said, our strength as women lies within the collective. If women joined together, we could rule the world.</p> <p>I that. you know, for me and the really tough parts of my life, it’s been my friendships and my family and the women that have really supported me. And if you think back, you know, whether it’s someone’s having a baby or someone’s had a loss, the women are the ones that show up with the casseroles or the ice cream or the margaritas or whatever it is to support.</p> <p>Why I feel this topic is so important is just talking about it. I think it gives people pause to be like, you know, maybe I am too harsh on, on someone or, you know, maybe I can stop doing that and realize someone’s life can look different than mine. And it’s not a competition.</p> <p>Yeah, definitely. I want to go back to one thing you said a few minutes ago and that is about perfectionism. And I grew up with a mother who was a perfectionist and I struggle with it and I try really hard to break that habit. And I catch myself frequently still. And I just want to remind people that it’s about being as good as you can be for yourself, not being perfect because there is no such thing as perfect.</p> <p>and somebody will out-perfect you and they will challenge you because they think that they are even more perfect than you are. So it’s not about competition with other people. It’s really about being who you are and being the best you can be.</p> <p>I agree with that. And one thing I do tell my clients and some of them are good with it and others don’t love it. But I always say done is better than perfect because oftentimes, oftentimes people get so caught up and they, they want it to be perfect that it never gets done. It’s, it’s like the book, the alchemist. I don’t know if you read that book. That was just such a great book to me because it is so true that you’re, so scared of not.</p> <p>achieving your goal that you don’t even attempt to achieve your goal. And I think it’s the same with perfectionism. You can get so caught up in it. And so I do say done is better than perfect.</p> <p>Mm-hmm, for sure. Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. We could talk for hours about this topic, but let’s pick about maybe three things that you think are worthy of mentioning again, or at least some concepts and ideas that you’d like to share with our listeners.</p> <p>I think, as I had said, to pause and give consideration. Like, I hard on, if it’s a mother to a daughter, do I expect more of my daughter than I do of my sons? Is it okay for the men to go watch football after the turkey dinner and the women are expected to clean up? I mean, that’s just a great example. And that was my lived experience. I love my brother dearly and he’s a great man, but it was my lived experience that the expectations</p> <p>for me were very different than they were for my brother. So I think that’s one to start with within your own family. And then I think it’s, you know, just because a woman has made different life choices, it doesn’t make one better or less than the other. And when it comes to parenting, just because someone does something differently than you, doesn’t, again, we don’t all have to be cookie cutter. So I think it’s just acknowledging and also</p> <p>The other thing to acknowledge is society benefits if we believe we’re all competing against each other for something. And if we can get rid of that and really come together and support each other, I do believe that we can rule the world. And I believe we can change our neighborhoods and change our communities if women supported other women in a way that just allows them to feel good, to thrive, to come to them if they have a problem, to not feel judged.</p> <p>I mean, to not feel judged, think is huge to know that you have a safe space to go to. So I think that’s important. And also the media has a lot to do with it. As I said earlier in the interview, just an example of shaming young girls for their fandom of who they enjoy, but it’s socially acceptable for men to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on their favorite sports team and punch a wall if their team, you know, I know that’s extreme, but you know,</p> <p>really have a strong reaction if their team loses. It’s the same thing. So don’t shame the little girl because she loves Taylor Swift or I’m sorry, I don’t know any of the new pop stars names, but Sabrina Carpenter, any of them. Let her enjoy her fandom. Let her enjoy what she enjoys.</p> <p>Mm-hmm. Right. Well, very fascinating conversation, Anne. Thank you so much for bringing that to us and sharing that with our listeners. And I will be very interested in hearing people’s reactions to this. So thank you for being here.</p> <p>Well, thank you so much for having me on and thank you for allowing me to talk about a topic that’s so very important to me. And I admire you so much and thank you and have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thank you.</p> <p>You too.</p> </details>
January 27, 2026
Elite Assistance for Creative Geniuses (Danae Branson)
<p>This week on the Creative Genius podcast, Gail Doby sits down with Danae Branson, founder of Elite Design Assistants, to discuss the transformative power of virtual support for interior design firms. Danae shares how she transitioned from the financial sector to design and eventually recognized a massive gap in the market for high-quality, specialized virtual assistance.</p> <p>With a team of approximately 110 assistants—primarily based in the U.S.—Elite Design Assistants provides everything from 3D renderings and CAD drafting to administrative support and senior design roles. Danae and Gail discuss the logistics of hiring remote senior-level talent, the common pitfalls of poor communication, and the “help me, help you” mindset required to make outsourcing a profitable success.</p> <p>In this episode, you’ll hear about:</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li><strong>Specialized Outsourcing:</strong> Why firms are increasingly looking for virtual senior designers and how to manage that role without “boots on the ground”.</li> <li><strong>Common Mistakes:</strong> The “Lack of Communication” trap and the “Flipping the Script” error—expecting a CAD specialist to suddenly handle invoicing.</li> <li><strong>The Cost of Flexibility:</strong> A breakdown of current hourly rates for virtual assistants, and what advantages freelancers have over full-time employees for certain roles.</li> <li><strong>Onboarding Success:</strong> How to treat virtual assistants as true members of the team, including firm email addresses and inclusion in weekly check-ins.</li> </ul> <p>If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: <a href="https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e9-shownotes">https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e9-shownotes</a></p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIMy2E3KEU4 </div> </figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-episode-transcript">Episode Transcript</h2> <p><strong>Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.</strong></p> <details class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"> <summary>Click to show transcript</summary> <p>Well, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast, Danae. And I love referring you all the time and we do this a lot. Your company is called Elite Design Assistance. So I’d really love to know your background. How did you get started in the interior design business?</p> <p>Yeah, so I actually started years ago, like in the early 2000s. And I just was self started kind of interior design. My husband was a contractor, but I kind of paid the bills in the financial industry. So it was, I don’t know, 2006, I actually started a virtual agency in the financial industry. By 2017, I wanted to get back into design and just to networking with different designers.</p> <p>that I was talking about, this is how, like my day job, so to speak. They were just curious why I did not create a virtual agency for interior designers. And so I decided I could probably do that. And when I started doing it, I had no idea it would blow up as big as it did, but that became my full-time job. And I no longer was in the financial industry and I no longer was an actual interior designer. So.</p> <p>I just run Elite Design Assistance and I love it. It’s super fun. I love helping interior designers, but I guess I just had a unique set of skills that kind of got me to where I am today.</p> <p>Well, tell us a little bit about your firm and what kind of services you provide and what is a typical thing for someone to come to you for.</p> <p>Sure. So we provide all sorts of services, basically anything that can be done virtually. So designers, we like to match them with virtual design assistants who have the experience, expertise that they need. So we do a lot of outsourcing with CAD drafting, 3D renders, admin sourcing, even senior designer position is becoming very popular right now.</p> <p>Like I said, basically anything that can be done virtually, we want to be able to help the designers.</p> <p>Well, absolutely. I know that I bet I’ve given you 30 referrals so far. I kind of lost count at this point, but a lot of people. And in fact, I was talking to somebody today about you. yeah.</p> <p>Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate it. And I love your clients. They are so great to work with. I love helping them. Yes.</p> <p>They are.</p> <p>Well, how many are on your team?</p> <p>We have right around 110 right now. Wow. Yeah, so located across the US. I always tell people 99.9 % of them are US based. I have a couple over in Europe, you know, just due to either military spouse or you know some other reason they’re over there temporarily. They usually are back, but occasionally people are OK with that time difference.</p> <p>We have worked with one of your graphics people that I is in Spain.</p> <p>Yes, yes you have, yeah.</p> <p>And she’s great. So we’ve had really good success with that. So we know because we actually use your services too.</p> <p>Yep, absolutely.</p> <p>Yeah, so you said that the common requests are a lot of CAD and you said a lot more senior designers. So why do you think that is the case?</p> <p>You know, I don’t know, it does ebb and flow. We kind of notice, you know, throughout the year and throughout the years, it’s certain services. I think right now everyone’s just getting super busy with projects. And those are the easiest things maybe to outsource right now is let’s get this CAD drafting going. Let’s get the 3D render going. Admin, a lot of people right now are coming to us for presentations, proposals, invoicing.</p> <p>And I think it’s just everyone is so busy. And for those designers in particular, I think those were the easiest things for them to outsource immediately.</p> <p>Yeah, and I think one thing though that I think is a little confusing and I have talked to some of the people that I’ve referred to you and hiring a senior, they are struggling with how to do that remotely. What are some tips that you could share, especially in a key role like that?</p> <p>Yes.</p> <p>Right. So absolutely. we actually are creating, I wonder if I even have it up still, we are actually creating a document right now about the steps and how to outsource to a senior designer and like some of the best things to do. Like, obviously they can offer anything from the space planning CAD documentation, the FFNE sourcing specifications, all of that. But some of the things we say is, you know, you really need to have that good communication in place.</p> <p>whether it’s a weekly video call or whatever that may be. But we are actually creating a document as we speak today. In fact, I was going back and forth with one of my seniors about making sure that it’s very clear so that when someone comes to us now wanting to hire a senior designer, we’re going to give them this document first so that they can look through it and know exactly how they’re going to work with the senior designer so that when they’re interviewing that person,</p> <p>They can spend more time on the actual interviewing of the person and their skill set instead of asking them, how are we going to work together? But basically it’s just, you know, those video calls, staying in communication, looping your senior designer in on your processes. And then they’re going to be able just to kind of lead the way as far as how they’re going to be able to help those designers and what they can. Obviously they can do everything virtually.</p> <p>But so that’s something we’re working on as we speak right now. So we should have that done fairly quickly.</p> <p>Yeah, well, and especially that’s an important role and you want somebody who can hit the ground running. However, they’re not going to hit the ground in your city. Right? Because they aren’t there. So you’re have to have processes to make sure that if there are jobsite visits, somebody internally is gonna have to do that.</p> <p>Yep, absolutely. Yep.</p> <p>Well, what are some of the things that people should know as a firm owner about outsourcing? What are the top tips on how to have a great relationship with your VA?</p> <p>Sure. The number one thing I do tell people is you do have to have some sort of organization around it. Occasionally we will get a request from somebody and they’re a little bit all over the place and I understand that because they’re overwhelmed and I get that. So we try to get them to just get a little bit more organized with the tasks they’re looking to outsource, maybe even prioritize those tasks. Because a lot of the people on our team do obviously, unless you’re hiring a senior designer, people tend to niche down.</p> <p>into the area of the industry they excel in the most. So if you’re needing CAD drafting and you’re needing admin and studio designer, that could look like two separate individuals. But we also just let them know that, you know, the most important thing is to just, you know, have that idea of what it is that you’re wanting to outsource a priority and then we can help you from there.</p> <p>So like we can get you started with one person if you need another person down the road for additional services. That’s how we’re helping people build their teams virtually right now. And so, you know, that’s been working out really well.</p> <p>What are some of the common mistakes that you see people make that outsource?</p> <p>Right. I would say again, that lack of communication, they maybe hire someone, throw everything their way, and then all of a sudden you don’t hear from them. And I’ll hear from a VDA like, I’ve emailed them three times. I haven’t heard from them in a week. I would say that’s one of the most, you know, and communication is huge. The other thing we see occasionally is I like to call kind of flipping the script.</p> <p>Maybe they hired somebody for a specific thing and then as soon as they worked with them, they decided that’s not the service they wanted anymore, but expected that exact VDA to do something completely different that maybe wasn’t in their wheelhouse. Maybe it was going to take them a little bit more time and in the beginning the designer was okay with that. But then upon seeing, okay, this isn’t going to be a fit, you know.</p> <p>If you’re going to hire someone for CAD, but then need them to suddenly do invoicing, you know, we, need to have a conversation with you again about somebody who’s going to be a much better fit. Most VDAs, honestly, they’re going to be honest and say, Hey, I’m, that’s not in my wheelhouse or I could do this for you, but it might take me a little bit more time. So it’s not very common, but occasionally we do see that where somebody changes their mind on what they want us outsource. And that’s totally fine.</p> <p>I just want to make sure that we’re getting them the exact right fit because we want this to be cost effective for our designer clients for sure.</p> <p>Yes, and it’s not, I think you’re absolutely right. If somebody is not organized and they don’t clearly communicate and they don’t have specific details, it’s virtually impossible to do that.</p> <p>Yes, it is. And I also noticed certain people maybe just aren’t quite ready to let go. That’s the other thing. Like you have to be open to this process, trust the process. You have to be open to allowing somebody else to come in and help you. If you can’t do that, obviously it makes it extremely difficult. If you still just want to have your hands in it and you know.</p> <p>not trust the process, then maybe you’re not quite ready to outsource. Everyone has their own comfort level with outsourcing and we just want to make sure that again, we’re doing the very best for our clients, but they have to allow us to help them. It’s that help me, help you kind of thing.</p> <p>Well, and for sure, I completely understand where you’re coming from. Our company has been in business since March of 2008. We’re coming up on 18 years and we have been virtual for 17 years. So our whole company is operating as a virtual company and I can’t imagine ever going back the other way.</p> <p>Same, yeah.</p> <p>Well, I suppose there are times too when somebody should be thinking about hiring a permanent hire versus a virtual. So talk to me about that. What is the deciding point for that?</p> <p>Right, so a lot of times designers do come to us and ask kind of the same question. So I tell them if you really need somebody who’s going to be available 40 hours a week, more like a full time employee, obviously you need to hire, you know, somebody in-house. You can hire an employee that’s remote, obviously, but you really need to maybe look at hiring an employee, somebody that you really need ongoing all the time.</p> <p>Most of our clients come to us because they don’t want to have to worry about paying somebody full time. It’s not that maybe they hire somebody through me and it’s possible somebody could work 40 hours in a week, but it’s not a consistent 40 hours by any means. We offer our contracting is as needed, no minimums, but yet we are matching for long-term relationships. So if you are somebody who’s needing help,</p> <p>but you don’t need full time and you’re just really wanting to make sure that you have somebody available to help you as you need them. I would say outsource to a freelancer, you know? But if you do need a dedicated person to your design studio, then definitely look at doing the in-house or the employee route for sure.</p> <p>Well, I was just talking with one of my clients that has been working with you too and I told her I said, and she said, well, should I just stop the looking for the full time person? said, no, absolutely not. It could take you six to nine months. Use today’s team to fill in in between until you find that right hire. But for right now, do both because you need both things in place.</p> <p>Yes, absolutely. And we do help a lot of clients with that exact same thing. And I did have a client once who ended up using somebody on my team for 18 months because it took them that long to find the right hire. And you don’t, if you have us and it’s working, then use us and take your time to spend, you know, take or spend the time, excuse me, to find the exact right person for your studio because it’s going to be huge in the long run.</p> <p>I can’t agree more because hiring the wrong person is so expensive. It can cost you the cost of their salary. And it is that in terms of the lost time when you have to hire again. So it’s so important to have this flexibility. And we have V.A.s on our team too. And, you know, we use your team for the graphics piece and we have some other people we work with that are part time.</p> <p>CTO is part time and he has been for gosh how many years 14 years now. Yeah, he’s in there a long time.</p> <p>Yeah. So yeah, there’s a lot of scenarios where you just need somebody, you know, we’ve worked on maternity leaves, long term, like vacations, or maybe somebody’s ill and is out for an extended period of time, you know. But yeah, we’ve got a lot of different scenarios where we’ve helped people in the interim while they’re trying to, you know, still run a studio, but they don’t have everyone in house that they need at the time.</p> <p>Yeah, and this is the best way to go about it, especially for small firms, because scaling, you’re not necessarily ready to hire somebody full time right at the beginning. And you might need somebody who’s doing CAD drafting or all the different softwares, maybe Revit. And those people are not needed full time, especially if you’re not, probably until you hit about a million, you probably don’t need somebody full time in that position.</p> <p>Right. Yeah.</p> <p>So let’s talk a little bit about ranges of some of the common hires that you might make a virtual system and some of the rates you might expect to pay.</p> <p>Yeah, currently some of the rates I would say you’re going to be looking around $50 an hour for any of your admin type of services. You know, a lot of times procurement can be included in that as well. Once you get into drafting, render, sourcing, bookkeeping, project management, you’re going to be looking around $75 an hour, I would say. And then for that senior designer service, it’s closer to $95.</p> <p>An hour bookkeepers, I will say bookkeepers and quick books do charge less than bookkeepers and studio designer, so that’s going to be a little bit different rate. You know you’re going to be around that 75 ish for a bookkeeper in QB, but if you’re looking for studio designer, you’re going to probably be closer to 90 for those. But keepers.</p> <p>Okay, well that’s good to know. So I wanted everybody to have an idea of what to expect before they reached out to you.</p> <p>Yeah, absolutely.</p> <p>All right so let’s talk about I think one of the biggest challenges because if somebody hasn’t worked with someone externally like this how do you onboard a virtual assistant.</p> <p>Sure. So I would say it depends on the service that you’re looking for. So it’s gonna be a little bit more tedious maybe to onboard somebody who’s doing all of your admin than maybe somebody you’re hiring to do CAD drafting. But so for admin procurement onboarding, it’s best to have a call with them, go through your process, your expectations. That’s the number one thing. I don’t know that all interior designers</p> <p>Think like these freelancers have a ton of experience. They’ve worked with a lot of designers. All designers run their businesses a little bit differently. We want to make sure that we are doing exactly what you need for your business. So go through your processes with them. Get them into your, let’s say you’re hiring an admin for Studio Designer. You’re going to want to get them into your Studio Designer. You’re going to want to get them into say a sauna, whatever programs and platforms you’re using. We also tell our clients you can,</p> <p>Absolutely assign them an email address if you’d like for your firm, especially if they’re going to be doing vendor communication, client communication, all that kind of good stuff. Go ahead and do that and then just kind of set up in the beginning if you want to do a weekly check in or however that looks. Again, designers run their companies so differently. Most of them come to us with the process that they’re like, hey, we already have a Monday morning 10 a.m. meeting. Can our, you know,</p> <p>Admin Assistant hop in on that. Absolutely. We want you to treat them as if you would any other member of your team. If it’s a CAD drafting or more of a creative service, it might be a little bit different onboarding process. You know, still you want them, you want to go through your streamline process, but you also maybe want to show them exactly what your expectations are.</p> <p>If you’re hiring somebody for those services, we are going to provide portfolios. You’re going to be able to see their work before you even talk to anybody and decide to hire them. But occasionally, maybe your firm does something a tiny bit different and you want your CAD template to look a little bit different or your renders. You know, again, we want to do what’s best for our clients. So just that communication piece and talking through that first, making sure that everyone’s on the same page.</p> <p>Also, when it comes to the creative side, drafting, renders, you can absolutely ask for an estimate of time upfront. Since we’re doing an hourly rate with no minimums, we still wanna make sure it’s very cost effective for our clients. So before you even decide, yes, I want them to do this CAD project, send them the CAD project and say, hey, can you tell me how much time that’s gonna take you? Because I don’t want my clients to have surprises on their invoicing.</p> <p>So we try to keep all that communication going so that, you know, I don’t have clients emailing me asking, you know, why their bill was the way it was. I just like them to click the link to pay it and we all go along our merry way.</p> <p>Yeah, well, that’s the goal is always to give people at the price they want. What are what happens if somebody is not a good fit?</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>Right. So I tell people to reach out to me immediately. Like if you’re having any issues, let’s say it’s a designer who’s having an issue with the design assistant, reach out to me immediately. Even if you think you want to try to salvage the relationship or continue on, I still want to be aware of what’s going on. I want to see if there’s something I can help. You know, maybe it’s just a miscommunication. Maybe it’s again, every designer runs their firm a little bit differently. I had this happen.</p> <p>last month where she had hired a CAD drafter and the CAD drafter had done something a certain way with the last 12 designers. So she assumed with this person, we’re going to do it that exact same way because this person didn’t tell her otherwise, well, this designer does things a little bit differently. So it was very minor issue. We got that worked out, but I want to know right away so that we can work it out. And if it’s just not going to be a fit,</p> <p>Usually it comes down to a personality or communication style, you know, then again, I will get you somebody different. That’s a much better match for you because I don’t want you to have to, you know, continue to move on with somebody and then it gets to the point where it’s just a horrible experience for you and you, you know, no longer want to use the service when you could have come to me weeks prior and let me know that there maybe was an issue. So these things are not common, but</p> <p>If they do come up, I do want to help immediately. Yeah.</p> <p>Sure. Yeah, and I don’t think anybody wants to be in that situation, but sometimes people feel bad because they didn’t want to complain.</p> <p>Yes, they do feel bad and they’re like, I don’t want to feel like I’m tattling. Don’t tell her I said anything. You know, it’s just, you know, they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And I understand that. But also at the end of the day, it’s business, you know, and you need a great return on your investment. You need exactly what you expected. And we want to provide that to all of our clients. mean, sure. Yeah.</p> <p>Yeah, so I tell everyone please come to me. Feel free to come to me. you know, don’t feel bad. Let me know what’s going on. I want to take care of it.</p> <p>hear you. Well, OK. Well, let’s talk about some of the things people could outsource immediately. What are some of the things that you recommend?</p> <p>Yeah, so typically some of the best things that you could immediately outsource would be your drafting, your renders. Like right now we are getting a lot of people who just need immediate help. And those are two things, presentations, proposals, sourcing. People are just needing a lot of help with it. They usually, you know, when you come to me, we visit, we figure out what you need. It usually is only a day or two before we could get you someone.</p> <p>My existing clients, if they need something immediately, we can usually get them something same day or like next morning. But for people who haven’t contracted with us yet, it usually takes a couple of days at least for us to get them set up. Social media is another one. That’s usually a fairly immediate, you know, you could hop right in with somebody and they could help you with your Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is that you’re needing help with.</p> <p>Well, and I think another area, is really big, which I’ve been having a lot of these conversations is scheduling and administration. So, for some people who get totally overwhelmed, I’ve been referring a lot of people lately to be about virtual assisting for executive level.</p> <p>Yes, yeah, we do have a lot of that. And again, it could be the scheduling. could be check my emails, draft responses. The designer will go through and see all the drafts and can just click send, send, send, you know, or weed out the junk if you’re somebody who’s starting to get more junk mail or emails, that kind of thing. But yeah, we have a lot of admin requests for sure.</p> <p>Well, and there’s quite a bit. I know it’s really interesting because we use Slack a lot in our communication internally and the person does scheduling and travel for us will just be observing and paying attention to what’s going on in the other channels and she can pick up on, I think I should reach out and see if I should schedule something for that. And so she’s being proactive about making sure that she’s scheduling something for us without me having to say it. She’s just saying, hey, I’ll go ahead and set that up for you.</p> <p>Yes, yeah, and that is that proactive piece. We do get requests, like we want to hire somebody who’s very proactive, who can just, you know, be a step ahead, so to speak. Again, we want to make life so much easier for designers, we want to take things off their plates, we want them to continue to grow, scale, or some people just need to take a break and get some time back, you know, from their own business.</p> <p>this industry, it’s a roller coaster and the work comes and it ebbs and flows and you know, that’s why we created the service the way we did so that we could ebb and flow with our clients.</p> <p>It makes so much sense to me and I can’t imagine working any other way. We only have, you know, we have what, nine or ten people on staff, but part are virtual and part are full time. So it’s smaller full time and mostly virtual. Specific people doing specific tasks and responsibility.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>Yep. And we are, I mean, primarily virtual. That’s what we do. We offer a virtual service. Now, occasionally I do have somebody that’ll ask, do you have anyone that lives local? Cause I do need help. In a rare instance or two, have happened to have people that were local that could help or somebody that lived close enough. Cause what’s happening is some of our clients are working in one state and they’re growing their business to another state.</p> <p>and maybe they’re in Colorado and also Florida, or you know what I mean? It could be not even states that are real close together and they need somebody in that other state that they don’t live in just to maybe do measuring or things they don’t want to have to fly back and forth for. So occasionally we’ve been able to help that. I envision in the future maybe even offering an additional recruiting service because I’m finding it’s great. Designers are busy.</p> <p>They are busy and they need help and we want to help in every way we can possible virtually, but in the future I think it would be interesting to see how it might look to have another component to be able to help match with local as well.</p> <p>Yeah, some people really need those people locally, the boots on the ground, which is one of the hardest parts of this when you’re virtual. Yeah. But I do have one firm I work with and she has all virtual people and has for 10 years. yeah, as a designer, that’s pretty forward thinking that she was. Yeah. Yes. Yes.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>It’s not even pre COVID times. It was more difficult for people to wrap their head around the virtual, you know.</p> <p>COVID made it very good for your business.</p> <p>Yeah, we did. exploded during COVID. Yeah. And now people see there’s a lot of options to continue to work with virtual, you know, virtual design assistance, continuing moving forward. Yeah.</p> <p>Yeah, and I think one of the things to remember is if you don’t really need a full time person and your business is cyclical or you’ve got big projects and then you have nothing and depending on what phase they’re in, the nice part is you’re not paying for the overhead of the payroll and people not being productive and people taking vacation or taking breaks and things like that. You really are paying for the work that you need to have done, which is.</p> <p>very cost effective, even though it’s a higher rate than if you were to pay that person internally.</p> <p>Right. Yes. Because across the year, it’s going to end up being very cost effective to hire freelance or virtual than an employee. And we do have people that come to us that are like, you know, I don’t have as many projects as I used to. I can’t continue to pay these people to sit here and do nothing. I had to let someone go. But now I’ve got a project in and I need help again. But I know it’s not going to be full time. Can you guys help me? And again, yes, this is why we created</p> <p>business, we also have people that will hire because they don’t want to continue to grow their waitlist. They’re worried that they’re going to start losing some of those people. And so they hire people from us to get some of these projects going so that they can get ahead of it. And then, you know, they hope that plateaus, however that works. But a lot of times when people hire us, they continue to, to use us because their businesses will continue to grow as well.</p> <p>Which again, right now you just kind of strike where the iron’s hot, you know, in this industry. If clients are coming to you and you can take them, you know, take them.</p> <p>Well, I think there’s another really good point here, and that’s the opposite, which is if you are slowing down or you’re taking less business or you want to semi-retire or take a break for a while, you can always refer people to you to hire them as a virtual and have them find other employment rather than just let them go.</p> <p>Right, yes. And we do have that too. Designers all the time will refer me to people that were on their teams. That, you know, that exact same thing. And occasionally I will have designers who are slowing down and wanting to kind of retire from being a designer, but still want to be in the design world and be a virtual design assistant, you know. So it just depends on where they’re at in their life.</p> <p>Things change and maybe now it’s not a right fit for them to run their own design firm, but they still want to offer services to other designers. They’ll come to me and you know get work through our firm then.</p> <p>Sure, absolutely. Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground today. Is there anything I forgot to ask you?</p> <p>Yeah, okay.</p> <p>my goodness. No, I don’t think so. Yeah, I mean, we’re just still growing and helping as many designers as we can. And we just we love it. It’s so much fun. don’t I mean, it’s interesting, you know, all the designers that went to school to become designers and then get out and think, I really love the admin side or I really love the operation side. I mean, not everyone</p> <p>decided to stick with that creative side, which is great for us, because that business you need left brain, right brain people, and everyone has the experience in the design industry, they’re disabled to niche down into the areas that they love the most, you know? Yeah.</p> <p>true. We are at wrap up time and wrap up time is three takeaways and I’d love to get three items that you’d like to reinforce that we talked about today.</p> <p>Sure. So I would say number one, if you are looking to outsource, just take a minute. Look, assess your business, try to figure out where you need help and prioritize a list and look at those top things to get you started with outsourcing. So it’s not so overwhelming. Also consider if you’re cut out for outsourcing.</p> <p>Because I, you know, I just want to make sure that you are well aware of if you’re a person who knows you need 100 % control and you don’t like to outsource things, then it might not be a fit for you. We want to help those people who want to be helped, you know, that’s the best way to go about it. And I would also say that, you know, it’s outsourcing just like when you started your business as an entrepreneur.</p> <p>You just have to look at it that way, I guess. You you take risks as an entrepreneur in building a business and everything you do. Take that small risk of outsourcing and you will immediately see the best, you know, the great results and how it will help you continue to grow your business. Take back some time. You know, I see so many designers who are so busy, they almost get too busy to then outsource because they feel like they’re not.</p> <p>that they’re just scattered and I don’t even know where to start. And those are a lot of them that come to me and I try to help them get organized and say, okay, I’m going to walk you through this. Don’t worry, we’ll get you on a plan, you know, because I don’t want it to be overwhelming for them either. So sometimes it’s good to think about outsourcing, maybe before you might even think you need it.</p> <p>One of the things you might want to consider is doing an inventory of what you don’t like to do and what you’re not good at doing. And those things should be on a list that you should be discussing with Danae. So you can find somebody to do that.</p> <p>you. Absolutely because the number one thing people find and learn about themselves is if you don’t like to do it you’re probably going to procrastinate it.</p> <p>And so those are some of the best things to outsource. Absolutely.</p> <p>Yeah, well, thank you so much for your time today, today. Thanks for sharing and I hope this helps all these people who are desperately needing to expand team, but they don’t need a full time person. They should be reaching out to you.</p> <p>Yeah, thank you, Gail, so much. I appreciate it.</p> <p>Of course.</p> </details>
January 20, 2026
Doubling Down on a Design Legacy (Mike Ufferman and Catrina Cooper)
<p>This week on the Creative Genius podcast, Gail Doby welcomes Mike Ufferman and Catrina Cooper, the principals of Loczi Design. Mike and Catrina detail their professional pivot from the restaurant and auction house operations fields into the design world, and how they eventually came together to lead a high-growth firm in San Francisco.</p> <p>The conversation explores the complexities of “internal sales,” specifically how they navigated the process of buying the company from the original founder, Paige, after years of working as her leadership team. They share the raw, “brothers and sisters” dynamic of their leadership style and how professional coaching helped them move past emotional friction to achieve true operational alignment.</p> <p>Hear about the strategic “miracle” team of advisors—from valuation experts to business attorneys—that allowed them to complete a full company transfer in under six months. Mike and Catrina also discuss the “unreasonable” client service strategies they’ve implemented to drive their current record profits and why they are already planning their own exit strategies.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-discussion-points-teased">Key Discussion Points Teased:</h3> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li><strong>The Pandemic Pivot:</strong> How the team managed the dual upheaval of a global pandemic and the founder moving across the country in 2020.</li> <li><strong>Alignment over Accuracy:</strong> Why learning to work as a leadership team was a bigger achievement than simply mastering markups and financial data.</li> <li><strong>Buying the Legacy:</strong> The emotional weight and “healthy scramble” of New Year’s Eve signatures to officially take over the founder’s “baby”.</li> <li><strong>The Non-Negotiable Paperwork:</strong> Why you must discuss the “no-fun” topics—like buy-sell agreements and key person insurance—while you are still in the honeymoon phase of partnership.</li> </ul> <p>If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: <a href="https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e8-shownotes">https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e8-shownotes</a></p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVzTVu0bks </div> </figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-episode-transcript">Episode Transcript</h2> <p><strong>Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.</strong></p> <details class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"> <summary>Click to show transcript</summary> <p>Welcome to the Creative Genius podcast, Mike and Kat. I am so happy to see you. It’s been a while and it has been an interesting journey for you two and I can’t wait to dive into that today. First, I want to start with how did you two get into design and start working together and just tell us a little bit. I’ll start with you, Katrina. Okay.</p> <p>First off, thanks for having us. We’re excited to be here with you. It’s our first podcast, so we’ll do our best.</p> <p>Yeah, holy, you’re virgins.</p> <p>So how did I get into design? as you already know, Gail, I was in the restaurant business for a very, long time before I started doing this. And at some point just realized I didn’t want to do that forever. And a good friend of mine said, you know, you’re kind of a natural designer. Why don’t you go to design school? So I took that advice and went to school for a few years and then just started working and, you know, have kind of built my career from there.</p> <p>So it, yeah, I mean, it kind of happened nice and organically, but a little later in life maybe than other people.</p> <p>Okay, yeah, well I didn’t go back to school till I was 35 for design so yeah.</p> <p>That’s about how old I was too, yeah.</p> <p>And I graduated, I think, two years later. yeah, it was good to go back. I think everybody needs to decide what it is that they’re called to do.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>Right, right. Yeah, yeah, it’s nice to have a second career and have some to do it later in life to it was more intentional. I mean, I was able to do a lot better than I think I probably would have right out of high school.</p> <p>sure. This is such a different industry anyway. And of course, you’ve gone from being an employee to owning the firm. We’re going to talk about that in a couple of minutes. But Mike, about you, how did you get into design?</p> <p>boy, that’s a long journey for me. I grew up in Ohio in Cincinnati in this small town and went to school for business at the University of Cincinnati and worked my way through college working at a hospital there and was sure that I was gonna go on to medical school and I really wanted to work in labor and delivery. That was the field. I got accepted there and studied a little bit and just decided it wasn’t really for me.</p> <p>Did a couple things and ended up out in California and I was working operations for an auction house out here. At the time it was called Butterfields, it was a very famous auction house in California. Another company bought them and I was running a lot of operations. I was seeing art every day. I was just getting a master’s degree in art education every day I came to work. I fell in love with design from that. And I had…</p> <p>You know, a change in life happened there and a friend of mine called me while I was literally vacationing on a beach in Mexico and said, Hey, I’m starting an interior design firm, get in your car and come back up here. Uh, and I did, and I turned around and I went back up and I ran his business with him for seven years and, um, he owns a building downtown and Paige, the previous owner of the company here was doing a photo shoot with Katrina and some others there. And I showed up and we talked and we ended up working together and.</p> <p>A couple of years ago, I went back to Berkeley and studied a design there and we’re here now.</p> <p>It is so crazy. Yeah, I think it really makes a difference if you have a business background too or some other experience coming into this and for you Katrina just having that hospitality background is perfect for interior design. Tell me a little bit about your firm who’s on the team, what the roles are, the responsibilities. I know both of you are the principals and the owners now, but what about the rest of your team?</p> <p>Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we’ve got six people in our San Francisco office. Of course, Mike and I work there and Ava is our senior designer handling some of the larger projects. We’ve got Diana and Jennifer who are both working as associate designers and then Eric is our staff designer. Samantha is hand in hand working with Mike. She runs our whole office and his whole life.</p> <p>And we also have Olga, who doesn’t work in the office with us. She’s our controller. She’s a big part of what we do at LOXIE.</p> <p>Well, that’s a good size team too. Yeah. I’m sure you’re feeling a little bit stretched because it sounds like you’re busy right now.</p> <p>Sure are, yeah.</p> <p>And we are having that conversation right now too about hiring a couple staff members, maybe another senior designer and also another staff designer.</p> <p>That’s great news. like hearing that. What was going on in your business? When you reached out a few years ago, we determined there was probably somewhere in the range of five to seven years ago when you reached out. And at that point, you weren’t the owners of the business. So what was going on that caused you to do that?</p> <p>I’m sorry.</p> <p>Yeah, there was a lot. We were growing quite a bit and there were three of us that were leading the firm. We knew what we wanted to do, but we were going in different directions with it. We all wanted to grow, but we were growing differently. We were having a hard time sort of coming together with what our plan looked like. And it was really sort of important for us to reach out to you at that point, just to</p> <p>to save the company really, to really figure out what we were gonna do next with the company, where we were gonna go with it. And that’s how we got to you.</p> <p>Yeah, and you said it was a friend of yours and I don’t even know who it was that you knew, but…</p> <p>Yeah, that friend of mine said, mean, going back to that, my friend, we were looking for a business coach and a friend of mine knew you or knew of you somehow, suggested that we reach out to you. And he said to me, you need to talk to her. She is the inter-design coach of the stars. We knew right then that you were who we needed to speak to and we never looked back after that.</p> <p>my gosh, that’s so funny. I have no idea why anybody would say that, but okay. Yeah, my little secret is that I try really hard to not work with the celebrity designers. They, it is a no-go for me.</p> <p>for.</p> <p>You</p> <p>Hmm, interesting. I hear more about that someday.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>Yeah, that’s another story all by itself. Some stories I can’t really say, so I’ll just leave it at that. But anyway, so you had a lot of chaos going on and let’s talk about that crazy day that we had. So I flew out there and met with three of you and I remember meeting or waiting for you all at the office. I was there on time and everybody was a little bit late and I was standing outside and all these guys were out there.</p> <p>Brutal pruning in front of the office.</p> <p>Yeah, we had a plumbing issue, I guess, that day and they were trying to break into the plumbing line and they had jackhammers outside and they were really making a mess of it. So it was a no-go to be in the office that day.</p> <p>Yeah, and I remember that actually the whole plumbing wasn’t working and that we had to go to your house. And so, and then you guys starved me because we didn’t eat dinner. 1130 at night, I just remember that it was just one of those really unusual situations. We were having a very long day and I remember being so tired at the end of the day and you all dropped me off and I got…</p> <p>Right.</p> <p>ride back to the hotel and I think it was about midnight when I went to bed and it was just, it was a day. I can’t remember a day going now long before.</p> <p>Yeah, in my living room, like we had to leave our studio space and I live the closest so we all packed up and went to my house and had our VIP day.</p> <p>You realize that there are a lot of things you needed to change. So it was not a simple thing. And then we tell people that this is work. You cannot just come to us and get the suggestions. You have to do something about it. You actually have to implement. yeah, it takes a while to get to that point. And sometimes, and I think in the case of all of you, there was not necessarily alignment between what needed to be done.</p> <p>And I think that was the thing that I noticed when I was coming in is that the three of you needed to get aligned and you had to agree on what the direction was for the company and who was doing what and why and what you were really trying to accomplish as a whole. So looking back on that now, what were some of the biggest impacts that you experienced after starting to actually put things in place?</p> <p>Well, I think a lot of it was the interaction between the three of us just as a leadership team. Like that was the biggest accomplishment I think that we got from working with you is learning how to work with each other better than we were. It wasn’t the carry the two and divide by three and that gets you mark up so much for us. It was how do you navigate your business? when there are three of you on a leadership team,</p> <p>How do you navigate through that and how do you keep emotions in check? It’s very emotional when you’re working with people so closely. So our learning experience just came from spending time with you. And honestly, if I can be very transparent, there were times when the three of us were on leadership calls, Katrina, Paige and I, and we’ll say we are brothers and sisters. Like we go at it sometimes. Like brothers and sisters would. Interestingly enough,</p> <p>when we add a fourth person to that call, i.e. Gail, you tend to be on a better behavior sometimes. You that, right? No one wants to that side of them. just having your, honestly, having your presence around, for me in any way, really changed how I approach my management portion of the company.</p> <p>Sometimes.</p> <p>Well, interesting. Yeah, and I think that what was interesting about it is there was so much emotion involved for the three of you. I have not run into that ever before. And it’s not a negative thing per se, but like you said, and sisters, you don’t always get along, especially when you’ve worked together that many years. And it is okay to be able to</p> <p>have disagreements and sometimes just knock down drag outs because it’s really important to get it out. You’ve got to resolve whatever that issue is. And I think honestly, you guys are the beginning of me starting to coach leadership teams. And that’s what I tend to do mostly all, all the time now for the very reason that I think that it really helps people understand the dynamics of how to work together.</p> <p>Because if you can’t communicate well and you can’t agree in a line on where you’re going, then it becomes a very messy, sloppy situation.</p> <p>Yeah, in particular when there’s one owner of the company, right? And then there two employees who are on a leadership team. And at the end of the day, that owner has a say in what happens. But when you’re the person running the finances and managing books and you know where money goes and how it comes in and out, and Paige’s strength is her creativity and the brilliantness that she brings to every project she’s got. And Katrina’s ability to like</p> <p>project manage like everything that she’s creating and then me quote quote paying for it on the back end with the books. You know, it is this we’re all trying to accomplish the same thing, but we were coming at it from three different perspectives.</p> <p>Yeah, you definitely provided a structure for us because I think because of you know the way it started it’s a small kind of startup company everyone’s really passionate we all got to know each other really well we love each other a lot. But we were all doing the best we could like Mike just outlined like we all have our lane and our super strengths which is why the company was so strong.</p> <p>But without a real structure in place and kind of not knowing it was missing or definitely wouldn’t know how to put it together, it was tough for us to come together. So when we were working with you and you were kind of mediating and kind of therapy and, you know, kind of just being that anchor in the room that was like, well, we’re supposed to, you know, we’ve got to, we’re, trying to build a system here.</p> <p>and the system is around the advice we’re getting and we’re trying to, I think all of us, the three of us, me, Mike and Paige learned how to realize that part of the success is learning how to communicate, to compromise, to come to a conclusion and just sit behind that conclusion and move forward. And just that simple shift, like that simple structure outlined for us, I think it started to sink in and it just started to work a little bit better.</p> <p>things got a little easier, a little more organized, and we started implementing all kinds of great things. So I think it really helped a lot.</p> <p>Well, yeah, and you grew really fast. And so right after you came on board, your revenue went way up and your profit went way up. And and to me, that was I think it was really because you were all more aligned on what needed to be done and who was doing what within the company. So that was one of the things that I noticed when we were working together.</p> <p>And of course it was interesting because it hadn’t been that long since Paige moved to Chicago because her husband took a job there. Right. And so let’s talk about that because that was an interesting change for you all because all of a sudden she’s not there in the office all the time. so how did that change the connection with her in the business and with all of you?</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>And that happened right around COVID, right? I was trying to remember when page left and Johnny took that job in Chicago, it was right around COVID. So it was her leaving and then a global pandemic happening at the same time. Am I right about that timeline, Kat?</p> <p>So yeah, COVID started to ramp up in February and then March was when all the shutdowns started and she moved in August of 2020. it was really a strange, especially for her. I mean, she was in a complete upheaval state of, you know, the world’s falling apart and I’m gonna move away from my company that I love so much. I know I have a team here that will run it, but we’re gonna drive across the country during a pandemic and start a new life. So everybody,</p> <p>It’s funny that it happened in conjunction with COVID because both things were such life shifting events that, I mean, maybe one helped the other because we were all already having to work remotely, like designing whole homes, through Zoom and, you know, having to hone all these new skills. Then the idea of her going was like, well, this is just another thing that we’re going to figure out. We’ve already learned how to work remotely because of COVID. We’re going to work remotely with Paige. You know, we’re going to help her get settled.</p> <p>and we just sort of, like we always do, we just said, yes. Okay. Yes. We’re going to make this work. We’re going to do it. Like we’re going to keep going no matter what. And we’re going to make it work together because as much as, know, there’s been tension and sometimes there’s disagreements, there’s always been the firm and you’ll know, you know, this Gail, the firm rock solid, like, well, no one’s leaving. Like this is what we’re doing. So no matter what happens, even if I flip out for a little while, I got to go over there. I’m going to come back. So.</p> <p>It’s right, you know, it was it was an interesting time of a lot of unknowns, but we all agreed like we’re going to go for it. We’re going to make it work.</p> <p>We did do that, but we also had a conversation too when she first talked about moving, about closing the company, if you remember. We had a very brief conversation about is this it? How could we even do this with me not here, with Paige not here? So we’ve had that conversation before about a transition of the company somehow, whether it was a closure or next iteration of it. So Kat’s right in the fact that we kind of have gone through this process before, you know,</p> <p>with the quote, death of Paige in San Francisco and moving to Chicago. And then from the ashes of that, like sprouting the company again, and then having this grand plan of opening a Chicago office too with Paige heading it there. So we had like all these, these, these tools in place to do all of this. So I think that that was, was really instrumental in getting us to where we are right now, just having that history. Like Katrina said, like we’ve done this, no one’s going anywhere.</p> <p>We’ve got it, let’s keep going.</p> <p>Right. Well, and what I saw, especially from the two of you, is such a connection. And you two just work so well together. Not that Paige didn’t work well with you, she did. But you two are just like joined at the hip and you really are a great team, which is very cool because now that you’re owners of the company, I see that as I couldn’t see</p> <p>this company continuing without both of you. So, think you both had a place in the business and in the plan. And then of course, was, I don’t know what a year and half, two years later when she decided she needed to consider selling the business. So that kind of came out of the blue. And I remember talking to her about it several times and she asked if I could help with that. And I said, yeah, I can help with that.</p> <p>And so how did she approach you and when did she approach you?</p> <p>Well, I’ll kind of start it and then I’ll let you take it, Mike. You know, it really was, like Mike said, even back when the Chicago thing came up, there was a little bit of like, do we buy it now? Do we close it? Like, what are we doing? What does it look like? And then as time went on, so, know, 2025 now, we bought it January 1st of this year. So she was gone for four years before we decided to make the change. And, you know, she had…</p> <p>There were rumblings of it for quite some time. And I know she was talking to you about it, Gail, but it didn’t really come to like a full head of like, okay, this is happening right now until, you know, quite far into the process. And then I’ll let you take it from here, Mike.</p> <p>Yeah, I think what that was too was, you know, after COVID, we had a really, really successful year in the company, profits were through the roof. And then people had to go back to work. And then our business for the next two years didn’t do as well as it did around the COVID period and previous years. And we had a loss two years in a row. And we were trying to figure out first, how do we stop this bleeding from happening?</p> <p>What cuts do we need to make? What changes do we need to make in order to right the ship again? And we would look at our reports and there was a point where I was just like, gosh, I don’t even want to show these reports because they’re just not looking great at this point. And we had a couple of conversations last year that was like, look, if we can’t turn this around, like, why are we still doing this? But we’ve always believed in ourselves and we’ve always believed in our brand and we always knew that we could do it somehow.</p> <p>And we did have conversations about maybe this is it. Maybe this we just disband here. And Paige was in town. And I remember that you and her and a couple of our employees were at an art gallery, I think. And I was waiting on you at a Thai restaurant. And Paige showed up at the restaurant. And very lovingly, we had this really beautiful conversation about where she was, where she had come from, where she had feeling the work she’d put in. This would be a really great question for Paige to answer, actually, because</p> <p>She had a lot of heart and soul into like getting to the point of even offering to sell this company. This was her baby. Like this is, this is her identity. This is her history. This is everything about her. And for her to say, I think I’m ready to hand it over. That’s a big deal. And we didn’t take that lightly at all. Now we did think that we had more time to make the transition happen and it ended up happening very, very quickly. And it was a scramble.</p> <p>to get everything done. A healthy scramble to get everything, but we got it finished.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>I remember that very well. And when she started talking to me about it, and I know I was talking to the two of you also kind of in different conversations, and you all had different opinions about whether you wanted to do this, whether you were interested in it. But the thing that she always said to me privately was, just love Kat and Mike, and I want them to own this company. I think</p> <p>they should run the company. I said, I agree, they’re the right people to run the company. They can certainly buy it and they can certainly do this. And she was all in. She wanted to make sure that you were well taken care of. So that was her message to me throughout from the very beginning of the process. So I remember that well.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>And we’re very appreciative of that too. We know that and we’re very, very appreciative of that.</p> <p>Yeah, a lot of emotions involved in it for sure, because behind all the paperwork and the learnings and the stress and the timing and all of that, it was the three of us and her kind of generosity and just the place that she came from around the whole, it was very generous and it was really lovely. mean, looking back at it now, we’re very, very lucky. I mean, we just built up this company together, the three of us.</p> <p>built the company we wanted to work at. always say that. And then she agreed to, she got secure with herself as far as like, really do, I am ready to step away and I am okay with letting it still live on, even though it’s my name with the two of them kind of running it from here. And it was very, very generous. was a great situation. Really feel very lucky.</p> <p>Yeah, I agree. think her intent was positive from the beginning. And so that is the best way to come into a situation like this. she wasn’t trying to take advantage or charge you ridiculous amounts for it. She was, I think, exceptionally fair in the way she approached it. So when I look at it from the outside, because I’ve helped several companies now go through this sale process.</p> <p>And I look at it and it’s not always that way. And it doesn’t always turn out the way that you want it to. But she had asked me to throughout, she said, can you help me through this and help us work through this? And I said, absolutely, because it’s something that it really was more about making sure that everybody was well cared for in the process. And yes, it’s still a business transaction, but there’s a lot of</p> <p>of the people part, emotional part that has to be addressed. and I know it was hard for you all and I think sometimes scary to come into it, especially after having a couple of down years to like, should we really buy this company? And the thing that I knew was, yes, you should because you had a good brand, you had a great visual, you had put so much money into your branding and all the things that you were doing.</p> <p>that it would have been crazy to walk away from that. that was really, it gave you a leg up to have, to be buying into a business that could be turned around, which you obviously have done. So tell me a little bit about the process. How long did it take you? You said it was very short, which it was. And what were some of the things that you had to do to complete that transaction?</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>Well, we had to get the team in place first to help us. We needed advisors, and that was a key critical component to this. I am part of a pretty</p> <p>extensive networking group here in San Francisco. And we’ve been very fortunate to find a good group of people in there with really diverse skills. And I will credit to the day I no longer work at this company, all the people from that networking group who stepped up to support Katrina and I and Paige through this entire process. We had in our networking group a woman who does company valuations. We had a business transaction attorney in our group.</p> <p>we had an architect, we’ve got the contractors, like you named them, they’re all in this group. And we were able to pull on that to have them come over and act in this judiciary way that was fair to both parties. Like we didn’t have two valuations done. Kat and Paige and I all said, let’s go with this valuation. We trust Annette and what she’s doing. She provided the information. We reviewed it all and we made decisions based on that. We had a CPA that we’ve been working with for a number of years.</p> <p>who was kind of instrumental in structuring how the buyout would look. Mike, you’re gonna pull funds from here. Katrina’s gonna fund this. We’re gonna pay page in this manner and it’s gonna look like this. These are the dates we’re gonna do this. So she was instrumental in that role and then bringing Anthony, our attorney in to draft the agreement around all of that. And also he spent a lot of time pulling documents that we needed to have, articles of incorporation, stock agreements.</p> <p>all the things that we had to prepare for him. It was a lot of work to get those documents together. Fortunately, I’m the keeper of most of those documents. So it was a barely painless process for us to get all that together. But just having all of these people on our team, you included being very instrumental in that. And then the final component was having our financial planner, mine and Katrina’s financial planner on board too, looking at all the documents saying, here are the implications of all this and here’s what it could look like for you.</p> <p>Having those components in place with all that documentation is the only reason we are able to do this in the short amount of time that we were. It took less than six months to make the entire transfer.</p> <p>Right.</p> <p>Yeah, yeah. To the signature on the deal. was really, really fast.</p> <p>It was, mean, the signature on the deal was literally because our CPA wanted it done in the calendar year 2024. Our attorney was at work on New Year’s Eve at noon. And we were at our docu signs waiting for it to come through to make this transaction happen literally at the 11th hour.</p> <p>We were up and down.</p> <p>Yeah, I think it was like 330 in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve and we were like, the makes are going to close. Are we going to get, mean, it was really last minute. It was so much of it was kind of a miracle. Like it’s, it’s a great exercise. And like, if you build it, they will come, or if you imagine it or ask for it, or you, you know, you step toward it, it will come because the group of people that we had around us, like Mike said, was, it was a miracle. It was just amazing that we had access to these people that</p> <p>we had a relationship with and that we trusted. We would have been lost if we had to find those people and vet them. And it was really, it was really something.</p> <p>It’s a lot and it does take a team. takes people you trust, people that can work together too. So each of those may or may not have worked together before in a transaction. So you need people that have transactional experience.</p> <p>That’s right. And none of them had ever met before. So we had cobbled this team together and put them in rooms of strangers together saying, okay, here’s what we’re trying to do. And they’re like, where’s the other attorney? Like, no, no, no, you’re the only one. Where’s the other business? No, no, no, you’re the only one. You’re acting in all of our best interest here. And I think that having the foundation of what we were trying to accomplish ready to go, and meaning that Kat and Paige and I talked about</p> <p>what this would look like and what we might encounter. And you sang very clearly to us, look, there are gonna be challenges. This is going to get very personal and very emotional. And it did, but having all of those conversations on the front end really aligned us really well so that when we went into this, we went in not from opposing sides, but from the side of like, how can we best all come together and do something really positive and successful? And I think we were really able to do that.</p> <p>It’s interesting because I worked with another company that used one transaction attorney. now we did it for the sole reason that it actually made it less contentious. And it was allowing it to move faster in this way because you were mostly agreed on the terms and conditions. And it was really more a matter of that person helping you execute on.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>This was more of an internal sale between colleagues and employer employees. This wasn’t an outside transaction where a lot of negotiation went into it with people that you didn’t know at all. this, if you’re gonna buy a company, I really think the best way to do it is work there. And buy it from a friend, right? I will not really agree with that.</p> <p>Well, how does it feel running the business?</p> <p>It’s scary as hell.</p> <p>It’s super fun!</p> <p>Yeah, it’s both, isn’t it? There is no way that it can be anything but both of those.</p> <p>Yeah.</p> <p>It’s very exciting. for myself, it’s it’s rewarding in a way that I don’t know that I have words for in that Paige and Kat and I, like we’ve mentioned, we’re so close and Paige just wanted the best for us too. So also to have her like as our cheerleader in the background here too, like we’re sharing with her, we’re having record profits this year, record profits this year.</p> <p>And to have her, when I told her this at lunch a couple of months ago, and I’m sorry she’s going to listen to this and I hope I don’t embarrass her. She was crying about, was in tears. She was so happy and proud of where we’d gotten to. And there’s, don’t know that there are words to describe how good it feels to take someone’s legacy and pull it forward in a really meaningful way with integrity and intention and to come from that perspective. It’s just.</p> <p>It’s so rewarding for me particularly.</p> <p>I love that. And I think too that having her still there in the background, still your friend, and you’re still talking and seeing each other, it just speaks so well for the relationship you all have. And I guess I’d ask this question, and it’s not as a negative, it’s more about knowing what you know now, would you have started your own business instead of buying one?</p> <p>of.</p> <p>No, and you advised us on that as well. The three of us sat on a phone call and we talked about what if we can’t make this transaction happen? Like, should we just go out and do this on our own and start over again? And we looked at numbers and we looked at the efforts, the sweat that we’re going to have to put in this, the time that we’re going to have to put into building and branding something new, which we could do. I have every confidence that we could do that.</p> <p>but it was right there for us. And it was handed to us in such an elegant way that there was no world where I really wanted to do this from scratch again. I would much rather my team, all of us be focusing on creating lovely projects and changing people’s homes and lives versus stressing about marketing dollars and getting into a magazine so someone knows to call us somewhere.</p> <p>Mm hmm. Sure. Well, and you had a lot of that that you’re working on, too, is getting the marketing back in gear as well. let’s talk about the partnership between the two of you, because that is something that you had worked together as friends, as colleagues in the business. Has this changed your relationship? How do you feel about it now that you’re partners versus just working on your own? Because sometimes partnerships don’t work.</p> <p>Well, Mike and I fight pretty well. do. We do well. Like I don’t and I don’t mean we fight a lot and it’s awful. I mean, like we’re pretty good at it. Like we know each other really well. We will speak for me. I’m comfortable being super vulnerable and embarrassingly like raw or incorrect in front of him so that he can really see what’s happening. So we’re really honest with each other. And I think that helps us a lot in.</p> <p>in the business because we do know each other, have the best intention. We also, like you had mentioned earlier, Gail, we have always partnered well together because we’re very similar. We think very similarly. So there’s not a lot of debate about like what should go where and which direction we should move in. We feel very similarly, which is a blessing. mean, that’s really just such a great thing because it just kind of happens. So I think the foundation of our relationship and, you know, has been a huge part of</p> <p>making this as easy as it can be. We have a lot of work to do to set things in place and to get down to the nitty gritty of what happens when what happens. But we also have pretty firm roles, which I know Mike can talk a little bit more about. We have our lane, we know where we’re supposed to be. And that helps a lot too. We try not to step on each other’s toes. Sometimes we do, but we try to say it in advance. Sorry, I’m gonna step on your toes a little bit. Sorry, I’m gonna say this.</p> <p>So it goes, you know, it goes pretty well. Yeah.</p> <p>Mm-hmm.</p> <p>It definitely changes your relationship though, right? Because before we were colleagues that were working for Loxi Design and now we’re partners who own a firm together and we’re much more and we were very intertwined before anyway. She’s one of my dearest, dearest friends on the entire planet. And I wouldn’t want to do this with anybody else. I really wouldn’t. She’s brilliant at what she does. And I’m so thankful that she’s on our team. I just am so thankful of that.</p> <p>And they’re all in, we’re very intertwined and like we’ve gotten ourselves to the point where I made a comment to somebody the day I said, we’re at this point where we know each other so well that we know when the other one needs to lead and when the other one needs to be led. So we’ve got this really good dynamic of being able to step back and letting the other person lead when it’s their role to do so. And when it’s not step back and let that other person take that role.</p> <p>Well, that is one of the positive things about being friends and also knowing each other and working together for so many years too. And staying in your lane is probably a big key to that as well.</p> <p>percent. Yeah.</p> <p>And there’s a lot of crossover in those lanes. we stay on lane, but I will have no problem pulling her in going, I need help here. I’m stuck in analysis paralysis. I can’t get out of this. I can’t make a decision on this marketing plan. Come here and help me. And within seconds it’s solved and we’ve moved on. Like you need that kind of partner that can come in. And when you’re stuck, they can come in and like step in and just say, I got this, do this, let’s move on. And that’s what she’s so great at doing.</p> <p>I think you brought up a really important point, and that is learning to be decisive and also learning which way to make decisions because there are really three ways you can do it. You can do it unilaterally, which is very tough when you’ve got two people who own it together. And there’s also getting the other person’s input, and then one of you makes the decision. And the third one is doing it collaboratively, where you have to agree.</p> <p>before you move forward. So it’s one of those three ways. And I think it’s really important to know which one is working at that particular moment for that particular decision. But to me, the biggest problem that a lot of people have running these businesses is not being decisive. And the reality is, is you’ve just got to make a decision and just go and you figure it out later. If it’s not the right one, you you’ll adjust, you’ll fix it.</p> <p>or you’ll stop what you’re doing and try something different. So it doesn’t matter. It just matters that you’re making a decision and moving on.</p> <p>I couldn’t agree with that more. Yeah, even if it’s the wrong decision, you make a decision and then you correct it.</p> <p>Do something rather than nothing.</p> <p>Absolutely. So what’s your vision going forward? Where do you want to go from here?</p> <p>Yeah, this is the tough one to answer because we’re kind of building it now. think Mike and I talked a little bit about this yesterday. And with the year that we’ve had with all the learning and the foundation building and the massive growth that we’ve had this year, when, at least for me, when I’m posed with the question, like, what’s your vision and what do you want next? The only thing that comes to mind is for this to just keep going. you know, just, we just, think for me, I’m still in a place</p> <p>You know, we’re almost a year into owning the company. And I think I’m still in a place where we’re figuring that out and we’re just learning to be owners and learning to work together. And I think we know that we need to, you know, come up with a vision and a plan and we need to have some goals set for ourselves. And I think we both kind of do loosely, maybe individually, but we have a lot of stuff to build that we’re excited to do, but we haven’t quite started it yet. So right now my vision is</p> <p>that we keep what we’ve got. have a wonderful team. We’ve got amazing clients coming in. And I’m just grateful that that’s where we’ve started as the owners. So right now that’s kind of all I can see in my view. Mike might have some other bigger vision.</p> <p>Well, my vision is don’t burn it down. But it’s important. I get asked that a lot. Now, the company, what’s your vision? And I have to say that I’m not trying to dance around it, but we’ve built our vision. We’ve been here for 13 years now building.</p> <p>The same.</p> <p>our future and now we’re living in our future that we’ve built. So for that, like that is my, that’s my vision is to just design with integrity and intent. I’ve mentioned that before to grow thoughtfully and to take on really exciting projects and do some work that maybe we’ve not done before. We’ve worked on a bed and breakfast recently in Mendocino.</p> <p>We have another one, exciting one that we might be working on in San Jose that’s a nice bed and breakfast as well too. So we’ve got these potential projects coming in that like help us expand and stretch muscles that we haven’t been stretching that much yet because we’ve been doing really good work and residential. But now it’s kind of an opportunity to see, yeah, it’s still residential, but it’s breaching that hospitality moment right now. So I’m excited to like touch on that a little bit and see where that takes us.</p> <p>Sure. Well, have you read Unreasonable Hospitality, that book? It’s such a good book. I love that.</p> <p>Yes, over and over and over and over and over.</p> <p>I, Katrina has heard this multiple times now. So she’s like, really? You to tell the story again.</p> <p>on business. I’m like, I know.</p> <p>You recommended this book to us and I listened to the audio version of this book and because the author is the general manager of this restaurant, right? And the story about this book is he and a friend of his, who’s a chef, buy a restaurant and they’re trying to turn it into a Michelin star restaurant. And not only a Michelin star restaurant, but the number one restaurant on the entire planet.</p> <p>And it’s called Eleven Madison Park in New York City for anyone that’s listening to this, read this book, it will change your life. And the whole book is about the unreasonable links that they go to to change how they are and how they function and how they operate to be better. Nothing is ever good enough for them. They question gift giving, which has been a enormous change for me and the things that we do for some of our clients now and some of our potential clients.</p> <p>and the feedback that we’re getting just from following some of the principles from this book have changed how I manage all of my client relationships. Read this book.</p> <p>It is so good. It is so good. And I’m really glad that you’re using that and putting it into action because when you do, you can wow your clients. You can treat them in ways that they’ve never thought about and they really now want to have because that is so special to have that kind of a relationship with someone who provides professional service for them.</p> <p>So.</p> <p>Yeah, I</p> <p>shared this book with the editor of Lux Magazine out here and she’s a good friend of ours. she and I talked about this book. This was two years ago when we had this conversation. She and I still talk about what we’ve done around gift giving with this. And I’ll give you, if I can, I’ll give you a very quick example of one of the things that we’ve done. I was on a client call earlier this year and she was sitting in her car and we were talking about a kitchen remodel.</p> <p>And her dog kept popping up in the background in the backseat of the car. And I asked her first off why she was in her car. And she said, well, I’ve got a contractor inside who’s giving us a quote on the kitchen. And I said, well, why do you have him in there? He doesn’t have anything to quote yet. So first off, get him out of your house. We don’t need him there yet. And second, why is your dog in the backseat? And she said, well, because he’s a little rambunctious in the house and he just he can’t be around people, but he’s behaving very well right now. So I’m really happy that he’s sitting in the car.</p> <p>And the call went on and on. And afterwards we got off the call and Samantha, who runs our entire life at work, I said to her, said, go find a pet store, get dog treats and a card that just says, thank you. And I want you to write on the inside of that, who’s a good boy and send it to them. So we had it delivered and she reached out and said, I cannot believe that you thought to give my dog in the back seat, a treat for behaving himself, why we were on this call.</p> <p>And now we get to work together.</p> <p>That is so cute. I love that.</p> <p>Yeah, and that came directly from that book.</p> <p>Well, it’s so great to be able to come up with some creative ideas because it’s an expansion of your creativity because it is a relationship driven business. And if we can build these beautiful relationships with people, they’re going to come back. They really don’t. Well, that’s great.</p> <p>Absolutely.</p> <p>Yeah. Personally, I mean, repeat clientele and it’s just so wonderful. I mean, that’s what we really want to build.</p> <p>Of course. Well, I know this is a weird question to ask you, but have you started thinking about your exit strategy?</p> <p>Every day. Every day. Every day. mean, look, I’m 55 years old. I’m thinking of where I’m going to be in 10 years and life changes are happening. we have a fantastic financial planner Katrina and I are working with and he’s so involved in how healthy the company is and what we’re doing and where we’re going and what our goals are, individual goals are.</p> <p>Everyday.</p> <p>I just met with him yesterday afternoon and I got off the call and I was like, my goodness, that feels so much better having had that conversation. And it wasn’t like, I need to sell something in three years from now, but it was the, if the company continues to grow and flourish, the valuation of the company will be, you know, such that it’s valued really well. And we have this potential to either sell it at that point, maybe to employees that we have. So it’s just really nice to start thinking about.</p> <p>what that would look like, but not losing sight of the thought that we still have a lot of work to do to keep the company on the same track that it’s on and to keep the profits coming in the way they are right now, right? So that when it is time for Katrina and I to let go or no longer be stewards of this company and allow the next people to come in and shepherd it, that we’ve got it in a really good place to do so.</p> <p>What happens if one of you decides you don’t want to continue? there’s some life happens, of course, and you have an agreement in place. Have you done that already?</p> <p>We are working on that. I I’m going to state this for both of us that we have this one year goal of learning and by January we’ve got to hit the ground running for sure on all of these things that we’ve been advised to put in place. we’re both excited to do it. just kind of business is getting in the way and projects and stuff like that. we’ve got</p> <p>Like we mentioned before, we’ve got such great advisors and such a great team. And we’ve got a lot of people saying, do you have this yet? Do have this? Do you have this? And we just need to start building. And I just asked Mike yesterday, what’s the first thing on that list? Like, what’s the first thing we would do? And he answered and I said, well, let’s just at least chip away at that. Like, let’s just start putting it together because we know we need to do that. It’s really, really important.</p> <p>You should take our assessment. We put together an assessment. It’s I think about 150 questions and it lists out a lot of the things that you need to have in place. So I’ll send that to you.</p> <p>I would love to see that because I think we’ve got some of them, but every time I think I’ve got it, our financial planner is like, but you have a long 15 year term, long term health insurance or a life insurance policy. and it’s like,</p> <p>That’s just one more thing we’ve got to check off this list now. So I do, I have a checklist. I would love to see what your assessment looks like as well too. We’re starting with updating our trust in the States. And you know, that we own the company and if something got forbid should happen to one of the two of us, we want to make sure that, you know, everything is outlined, what our wishes are now that we own this business. All this has changed and we have to make a lot of updates there.</p> <p>And then there are things in that buy sell agreement that are what happens if one of us isn’t able to work anymore. I forbid there’s an accident or something happens or someone wants to leave what happens. And you have to have insurance policies in place to cover those things that’s covered in that buy sell agreement. And the buy sell agreement is one of those things. It’s no fun. No one wants to do it. But what I’ll tell you is that our attorney said, do it while you’re still sort of in this.</p> <p>honeymoon phase of owning the company while things are really good. You can talk about things that like might not be so great. Well, what we disagree and we can’t solve something and we have to dissolve the company, what happens to that? That’s all written in this buy sell agreement. They’re not things you want to talk about. They’re things that you have to talk about. They’re assurances you have to have in place for your other partner. And so anybody that’s listening, like you definitely have to have a buy sell agreement in place for this. It’s not easy to do, but it’s really, really important that you have one.</p> <p>It is, and also putting key person insurance in place. So for example, I have it on Erin and myself. If anything happened to either one of us, it specifically talks about that. We have in my will, and even in my husband’s will, what happens to the company in case something happens to me. So you have to really think about those things.</p> <p>when you’re running a company. I know some people don’t want to think about that because it’s not pleasant, but you have to because I’ve seen too many people go through divorces, become very ill, have different things that have happened in their lives or taking care of family members. It can change in a second and you don’t know when it’s going to happen. So being prepared for that is really critical.</p> <p>Well, this has been really interesting and I hope all the people that listen to this are going to understand that it is complex when you’re running a business. It’s not easy anyway, but if you’re prepared and if you’re thinking through things, if you have the right attitude toward each other, then you can do anything together. yeah. Well, I always like to end with three takeaways that you’d like to share with us. So what should our listeners</p> <p>Yeah, so.</p> <p>Hear hear.</p> <p>take away from today’s session.</p> <p>So I gave this a little bit of thought here. Kathy, don’t mind, I’ll give the takeaways here. I think the first thing, because the conversation that we’re having is about what happens when you’re trying to buy a company, particularly from the owner of the company or employee there. I think the first thing you need to do is you have to have conversations and you have to have conversations early and often about what it looks like and what it means to each person involved and what their involvement is in this. It gets real personal.</p> <p>real quick. Business is your identity, as I said before, it’s your history, it’s all that you are. So you have to have those conversations and they are going to be hard conversations, but the sooner you have them, the easier they are to have. That’s first one. The second one is build the right team. You we talked earlier about having the right advisors in your sphere. It’s really critical that you have a really good CPA, you have a really good attorney and that you’ve got</p> <p>a financial planner and a coach, a really good coach. I’m telling you, Gail, I’m not saying this just to talk about the Poor Collective, but like we would not be here in this position if it wasn’t for your guidance. I’m not going to sugar coat that. It is true. It is fact. Without you guiding us, we would not be here as owners of this company right now. So thank you for that. So building your team is really, really critical. That’s two. And the third one is if you’re buying a company with a partner,</p> <p>You got to be really clear about roles and responsibilities. Who’s going to do what? Who’s going to manage what? Who’s going to be responsible for what? The clearer you are on those roles, the easier it is to have a partnership with that person.</p> <p>That’s great. Well, what would you like to add to that?</p> <p>Well, mean, building on the second thing Mike mentioned about the team, you know, also we were, you know, we take over something that exists already. We were lucky enough to have a great like front of the house team. I’ll call it Mike’s talking about the back of the house team, but we were really, really lucky to have that core group of designers, client facing people.</p> <p>I’m in place already and all of them were excited for us they were super supportive so if you have great people on your team and you’re looking to buy a company you know do everything you can to retain those people to bring them into the concept early so they understand what’s happening and they don’t feel blindsided or you know so we talk to our front of the house team a lot as this was going on they knew you know every step and everybody was on board they were excited for us they all said yes we want to stay so.</p> <p>know, really think about that if you’re planning, you know, to do something like that. Think about that front-facing team and kind of bring them into the mix of just awareness, you know, on the early side.</p> <p>Mm-hmm. That’s great. Well, this has been so great to catch up and just hear what’s going on. I’m so thrilled to hear that you’re having a banner year. And of course, I want to know all the details. And I know I’m not asking you on the podcast, but I’ll chat with you afterwards about that. But I really am so proud of you two for making this leap and doing this. And I know that sometimes you think 55 is too old to do this, but I started</p> <p>my business at 52 and I’m still working and there is no time that you have to retire. So it’s really about when you feel like you have this opportunity to build something, there’s something special about that. It is not easy and not everybody can do it. So good for you. You guys are just killing it.</p> <p>Thank</p> <p>Thank It is a hustle. Every day it’s a hustle. But I wake up for that challenge every day.</p> <p>That’s your challenge. Well, thank you both for being on today and I hope everybody enjoyed this session and take these ideas to heart. And if you’re thinking about buying a business, then do it. Just go for it. Because if this is something that you have to do for yourself, do it. Don’t let anybody stop you.</p> <p>That’s right. That’s right.</p> <p>Yeah. Thanks, Gail.</p> <p>Gail, good to see you too.</p> <p>to see you.</p> </details>
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