Melissa Galt: Beyond the Business of Interior Design
With Melissa Galt, https://melissagalt.com/
https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?item_id=15939227
This week, Tim and Carolina talk with design/business expert and catalyst Melissa Galt to see what’s going on in the design industry today, learn about her experience in the field and gain perspective on what people in the industry can do to improve their business.
More About the Show
The Build Perspectives podcast shares insider knowledge to build connections and community in the building materials industry. Tim and Carolina are friends, colleagues and former coworkers who love the construction industry and their clients, and want to share their passion and insights to attract future talent to the industry.
In this episode, Tim and Carolina talk with Melissa Galt, designer, coach, consultant and speaker, about the design industry today and her experience in the field. Melissa offers advice for people in the design industry on how they can improve and grow their company while still accomplishing not only their clients’ dreams but also their own.
Who Melissa Can Help the Most
Melissa tends to go after people that have been in the business for two to three years. People that are on fire, making money and overwhelmed because they have no systems, no processes and no procedures in place. These types of people are working too hard. Her motto is earning more with less time and less stress.
However, she also likes working with the very experienced. The people that have been working for 15 to 25 years in the business have lots of systems and procedures in place, but they want to step back without compromising their bottom line. Sometimes, they haven’t adopted newer channels, and they are slow to pick up social media. They’ve done referral base marketing but they have never done anything else, and they need some new things in place.
She had a client in the last 6 months like this, who had a really strong business design practice and a retail outlet in a small town. Melissa started her with events and she was able to get her event done right before COVID-19 hit. The fact that she did the event before the pandemic gave her buoyancy to go through COVID.
At the same time, the client had a right-hand person that she brought on board. That person was much younger and was adopting all of their new strategies really rapidly, including Instagram. She soared through it all in the middle of a pandemic crisis. Before CoVid, the client might not have survived because her primary time would have been in-person/in the shop, which was shut down.
Coaching is fun for Melissa because she loves working with both stages: the younger firms, and the established ones. The truly new-newbies are not a fit for her because she is not a hand-holder; she is a tough-love type of person. She wants people to not overthink when they work, so she encourages them to write down everything on paper and organize it. She calls it a “brain dump”.
If you keep it rolling around in your head, it stews and nothing ever happens. In this industry, people are highly visual, so getting it out on paper helps, as it allows for strategizing and organization. She hasn’t met a designer that isn’t a control freak and isn’t about perfectionism, but Melissa points out that perfectionism is a moving target. Sometimes “good enough” is good enough.
Designing During COVID-19
If you are a designer and you want to be in control, you have to delegate. The cool part about today with delegation is that it can be virtual. We don’t have to have this huge infrastructure of employees and big meetings. You can have a couple people working in the office, and you can have others working from home at way better rates. It is more flexible with no vacation pay and no workmans comp.
Now, clients aren’t as put off when companies say they are remote. They have adapted to the companies, just like workers have adapted, too. The whole infrastructure is more scalable, easier to set up and more acceptable. It keeps cost down, and it allows for more flexibility, which is something now needed in the design industry. It is changing so rapidly that the industry needs the nimbleness.
There are buyers out there popping on a headset and buying a multi-million dollar property that they’ve never even seen other than through AI. You can’t be as flexible when you are a physical team base. With COVID and commercial real estate, corporations have finally realized that workers can be remote most of the time.
People are saying that only 50% of the workforce is going to go back in person after COVID. That means a lot of empty buildings. However, those buildings won’t remain at 50% forever; they will be repurposed. That’s a challenge for interior designers now: space planning.
Upcoming Projects
There are many shows out there where interior designers come in and change a space for people. It has crossed Melissa’s mind a time or two. TV tends to change the way reality really is. Drama drives ratings, but Melissa tries to avoid and remove drama from her clients’ businesses and lives.
You can’t separate design from someone’s life — it is not just in their business. A designer is a “who” as well as a “what.” Design is something you do, but also something you are. You can’t separate it, and it comes home with you at the end of the day because it is part of who you are.
She is a person that keeps her clients in check, even if she isn’t there in person. Although she doesn’t really want a TV show, she is very excited about her rebranding and new website coming out this month.
Making Your Business Better
Melissa has two ways people can improve their company.
First, they need to infuse themselves in their business. There are too many people, designers particularly, hiding behind their business. They are not aware of it, and they would never own it, except when Melissa points it out.
For example, when the “About” page on a website speaks in third person versus first person, that’s hiding behind the business. That type of marketing doesn’t sound like a conversation.
Think of it as talking to one person: your ideal client. It makes it easier to think of it this way instead of thinking you are writing to the world. Then, add a picture of yourself to the pages.
Barclay Stone Interiors is a great example Melissa likes to use because the owner leaps off every page on the site. People aren’t hiring a firm, they are hiring an individual with a team. They need to know who you are. The same thing applies to builders.
Melissa would love to get contractors to build a website and put up images of their group instead of just listing their names. She wants them to show viewers that they are truly a team.
Carolina tries to get her installers to post videos on LinkedIn or pictures of them using the product, but it’s really hard to get them to advertise themselves, and it is difficult to get them on camera. A few would have fun with it, but you would have to get someone to get it on camera. A lot of times, the “done for you” model is how you have to get the third-party content. These guys are contractors, and they have this discipline.
Second, Melissa encourages businesses to have a marketing engine that is running all the time for leads. Some of the designers, no matter how accomplished they are, will have a rollercoaster in their business. They will be super busy, and they are not marketing at all.
Then, there is a dry spell because there is no marketing and no projects. That is a really painful way to run a business. Melissa also encourages outsourcing.
She doesn’t want her designers working on their own website, as that is not their zone of genius. Usually, there are three or four zones of genius. One is normally connecting with the client, another is design related. And sometimes, it’s not sourcing. So, let’s outsource the sourcing. You just have to be willing to train people, so you don’t have to do it ever again. You can treat it as an apprenticeship. It isn’t about you, it’s about taking the project to the next level.
If you don’t think you can afford it, look at the numbers. If your time is $150 to $200 per hour as a designer, and you can hire someone for $20 to $25 per hour to give you back two hours of time, it’s a no brainer. That’s two hours of family time, and you can’t put a price on that. It’s an investment, not spending.
Melissa doesn’t deal with terms regarding money, like “cheap” or “budget;” she deals with the investments, as she believes in ROIs. She is part of a business with the largest investment anyone makes in their lifetime. If it’s framed the right way and designers understand what this is really about, every project can grow.
Melissa grew every project by listening to the clients, reading between the lines and taking clients from need to want. Want is when the wallet comes out and Melissa’s imagination is fired up.
Clients are in charge of their money, not the designer. If they want a chair, a designer has to coax their “dream chair” of them to get the idea down. With designers, documenting an ideal project makes it easier to find an ideal client. Without coaxing clients’ ideas out of them on the front end, it could end up that in the middle of the project, clients realize their ideas don’t match with the designers.
Prioritizing the Clients
Melissa has seen where websites and designers become all about the project and forget about the client. Without the client, the project wouldn’t be possible. Melissa has always made it all about the client, asking how they would feel in the space, how they would interact in the room and what it will mean to them on a short term and long term basis. That takes the process to a whole new level.
She credits that to be the reason all of her projects have been able to grow effectively. It isn’t about the stuff you put in the room, it’s about the client. That applies with every interaction, whether its sales or hiring. Melissa mentions that clients rarely care about the money, but they care about the outcome.
It’s like a painting: If you can’t paint it to express something, it becomes about it’s worth or budget. But if you can make a painting tell a story and get people to become emotionally attached, it opens up all sorts of opportunities, and it takes you as a creator to the next level.
Wrong Priorities
When starting with a designer, Melissa starts by asking them what they want their life to look like. “How many days a week do you want to work?” “How many hours a day do you want to work?” “What kind of time do you want to have on the weekends?”
Melissa tries to give people with families time to go home and spend time there rather than working. She grew up with a parent who spent most of their time working, so she wants her designers to spend time with their family.
It’s a big zoom out, but because design is a lifestyle field, the challenge is to set boundaries. People have a tendency to sacrifice themself for their business in this field. Then, they wonder why they got divorced, why their kids don’t talk to them or why they have no personal life.
Making important relationships the priority is crucial for Melissa. She wants to make sure her designers are happy at home, not just at work. Melissa wants her designers to think about their dream lifestyle and work towards that, too.
Melissa’s Experience
Melissa has a degree from Cornell in Hospitality Management and was in that field for five years. She was climbing the ladder while moving cities, states and companies every eight months. She was a purchasing agent, and she was really good at it.
That’s part of the reason she loves sourcing, and she jokes that she loves spending other people’s money. She credits her creativity with allowing her to be so good at sourcing. Her designers will hit a wall not knowing where to find something, and 15 minutes later, Melissa found it for them.
She also loves her vendors. They are one of the most overlooked aspects of a team in the industry. Her vendors have always been her team. The minute she has a new project launching, she gets with her vendors, lets them know all the project information and asks for them to get back to her with product options. They know their lines in a way Melissa doesn’t. Melissa thinks that there is not nearly enough usage of this profession going on in the industry. She wants to bridge that gap because there is so much value in it.
Within 12 months of starting the job as a purchasing agent, her mom died. It took her those five years to have that epiphany moment: “Do what you love and the money will follow.” She knew she was really good at what she was doing, but she didn’t love it. She had reached a point of being really unhappy in that job.
However, it was hard to leave because she knew she was one of a few women in the field, and she was making decent money. The thing about hospitality is that most people don’t stay in it because it chews people up and spits them out. It’s a 24/7 job. She hated that even if you finish everything you needed to do within 40 hours a week, you were expected to hang around for an additional 20 hours.
She took a leap and went back to school for a second degree in design, where she got a three-year degree in two years. After 6 months of being full time in school, she also went to work full time while still studying design. Although she didn’t stay in hospitality, she learned systems and processes, and she was the turn-around agent.
Today, she is the turnaround agent/coach for her designers. She loves it, and there is nothing more special to her than her designers’ success. She is different from other coaches because she doesn’t just look at the bottom line and checkboxes, but she actually cares about her designers. She is their advocate and will go to bat for them in their business and their life.
For example, if she asks them if they have a supportive spouse and they say no, Melissa is there to help them fix their relationship with their significant other. If they are working all the time, there is no relationship to be had, so she encourages making important relationships a priority.
She wants her designers to have a good relationship at home because it will also improve their work-life and their confidence. She looks at what could be deemed as extraneous things as core values.
Working Sourcing Into Your Process
Tim has worked a lot with interior designers, and he has realized two things: interior designers have a lot of say with how the rest of the building fleshes out, including the exterior, and architects don’t necessarily source or purchase materials, but interior designer firms do a lot of times.
Melissa mentions that there are tons of software and sites out there that can help with the systems aspects of it and make it much easier, like:
- Mydoma Studio
- Ivy
- Studio
- Webware
- Designer Advantage
- SteelYard Access
- Material Bank (a great tool to use when getting samples and moving forward with a project)
The thing to be careful of, designs specifically, is the lazy loop. You are used to dealing with specific people, and you don’t branch out. You have to keep expanding and keep looking out for how you can find different and new products that stretch you as a designer. You are only as good as your sources, and you are only as good as your team. They make all the difference in the world.
Melissa’s Coaching Career
The best way to get in touch with Melissa about coaching is through her website or Instagram, though you can also find her on Facebook and LinkedIn. She encourages people to reach out to her, and she will send you a link to a designer business diagnostic.
It is a complimentary session where you answer questions for Melissa in advance, and then you get together to take a closer look at your business. Usually, people come to Melissa with symptoms that are not the actual issue, but she likes to actually identify the problem itself.
She has a core belief that is different from most people in the field, which is that you can have a business that is 80% design and 20% business and still be very successful. You do not have to be the opposite. It is very important because some designers are really scared that it has to be more business than design, but Melissa flips the norms and has different beliefs than conventional wisdom.
Important Topic Not Being Discussed – but Should
The business of homes is very intimate. The conversations are mainly about bricks and sticks and don’t touch on how we are an integral part of our clients’ big dreams. The two most important things you can learn in communication and relationships.
You can not know how to sell, but if you know how to communicate and relate, you’re golden. If you know how to sell but can’t communicate and relate, you’re screwed.
There is an important space where the industry needs to become more about the clients, relationship building and communication while becoming less about selling and the materials. Clients will be willing to live with the delays that are occurring because of COVID and the challenges surrounding that as long as there is proper communication and relationship. Without that, they won’t understand.
They need to feel understood. You have to understand their reasoning about why they want to move forward with a project. Most designers, contractors and builders don’t go that deep. They just see a new project, and the client becomes invisible to the project.
To Melissa, this is the biggest handicap in the industry. That goes with everyone in the supply chain, sales and manufacturers as well. People think of it as projects and opportunities rather than people and their dreams.
Melissa also points out how it would also be nice if everyone could work together effectively. If architects and designers partnered more, if contractors didn’t feel that designers were a challenge for them, project would flow more smoothly. It would be amazing if we could bridge our differences because there is a lot of friction within the industry among the different specialties. If the industry could work together, it could grow instead of being beaten up.
Interior designers can (read: should) reach out to Melissa:
Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s episode! Shoot us an email at buildperspectives@gmail.com.