From $500 Flyers to a $7M Show Home

From $500 Flyers to a $7M Show Home: The Contract Lessons Behind Erica Gelman’s Thriving Luxury Design Business. In this episode, I welcome back luxury interior designer Erica Gelman to talk about the journey behind her recent $7.3 million Princess Margaret Show Home—and the contract lessons that helped her scale her business.

Erica shares how she went from distributing $500 design flyers to building a thriving firm that handles high-level projects, celebrity-level exposure, and demanding timelines. She opens up about real contract horror stories, key revisions she’s made along the way, and why tailoring your agreements to fit your client (and your growth) is non-negotiable.

We also get into:

  • How she structured her proposal and fees for the $7M show home
  • The timeline clause every designer should include in their contract
  • The evolution of her process from flat fees to phased pricing
  • Her brilliant “white kitchen effect” approach to client decision-making
  • How to avoid endless revisions and scope creep with a simple framework
  • This episode is packed with wisdom, real-world examples, and practical interior design contract tips you can implement today.

Tune in to learn how Erica turned hard lessons into major growth—and how you can do the same.

 

 

episode highlights
  1. How to write contracts that scale with your business
  2. Lessons from working on a $7.3M show home
  3. Creating revision boundaries that protect your time
  4. Why designers need to stop being “the victim” and own their growth
  5. Real tips for navigating client expectations with confidence

 

 

Episode Resources

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

 

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;21;28
Erica Gelman
Part of the psychology of design and running your business is understanding who your client is. If the creative decision maker wants to be involved and they have the time and they want to hear all about the inspiration and and they want to hear every nitty gritty detail, great. But when you start working with people that there’s no emotional attachment because maybe it’s not even their home.

00;00;22;00 – 00;00;39;04
Erica Gelman
You really have to know and understand who your client is and tailor the way that you deliver to them. You are coming together. This is a business venture, and every part of that business venture really just needs to be sought out the same way that you would start any other business.

00;00;39;06 – 00;00;42;03
Rebecca Hay
All right.

00;00;42;05 – 00;01;11;09
Rebecca Hay
I’m Rebecca Hay, and I’ve built a successful interior design business by trial and error, podcasts, online courses, and so many freaking books. Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts to careers. And now I’m finally in the place where I want to be. Throughout my journey, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m passionate about business and helping other entrepreneurs do the same.

00;01;11;11 – 00;01;39;23
Rebecca Hay
Each week, I’ll share tangible takeaways from my own experience and the experiences of other badass women to help you build your confidence and change your business. Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca, and you’re listening to Resilient by Design. Today, I’m interviewing interior designer Erica Gelman. She has been on the podcast before and she is a dynamo. In this episode, I dive into a conversation with Erica about two things.

00;01;39;29 – 00;02;01;18
Rebecca Hay
Initially, we brought her onto the podcast to talk about contracts. She and I had had a conversation inside of Instagram DMs about how much she’s updated her contract since the last time she came on the podcast, and so we really wanted to have this conversation. But in the meantime, she just designed a massive Princess Margaret lottery show home, which is a really big deal here in Toronto.

00;02;01;18 – 00;02;22;13
Rebecca Hay
So of course I had to ask her all the questions. How did she get hooked up with the Princess Margaret Foundation? What was that experience like and how has it affected her business today? And then, of course, we talked about the nitty gritty of the horror stories that she has experienced in her design firm with her team, and how she has updated her contract as a result.

00;02;22;16 – 00;02;40;15
Rebecca Hay
And not just horror stories. The little lessons that we learn from running a project, and how we can then take those lessons and implement them into our contract, into our agreement with our clients so that we can avoid those in future. You’re going to have this conversation with Erica. She’s a graduate of the esteemed International Academy of Design and Technology.

00;02;40;18 – 00;03;03;08
Rebecca Hay
She leads a very talented team here in Toronto. She prides herself on a keen eye for detail, combining formal training with her flair for style and impeccable sense of color to create truly unique spaces. Erica’s work can be seen in numerous national lifestyle publications and most recently as the designer and decorator. As I just mentioned for the Princess Margaret Grand Prize Lottery Home.

00;03;03;10 – 00;03;19;16
Rebecca Hay
Her design approach is simple yet sophisticated. It’s a combination of lush textures and bold patterns infused together to create timeless designs. You will love this episode with luxury interior designer Erica Gelman. Enjoy!

00;03;19;18 – 00;03;23;27
Rebecca Hay
Welcome back to the podcast, Eric! I’m so freaking stoked to have you here.

00;03;23;29 – 00;03;25;20
Erica Gelman
I’m so excited to be here.

00;03;25;22 – 00;03;38;24
Rebecca Hay
I know we’ve had like, conversations offline saying like, we got to do this again, and then you finally reached out and you’re like, Rebecca, I’ve made changes to my contract. We need to talk about on the podcast. I was like, yes, ma’am, let’s get it going. So here we are.

00;03;39;00 – 00;04;02;29
Erica Gelman
I actually love I feel like I have a calling in my life was actually like trying to help other people in this industry. And I feel like because I started, as, you know, my story from the ground below, ground up, there are so many mistakes that I have made and I had. I wish that there was somebody, anybody to give me any form of advice.

00;04;03;01 – 00;04;16;15
Erica Gelman
So I am always so excited to be able to pass that knowledge on to someone else who I can guarantee is looking for it like it is. It’s not even a question like they are 100% looking for that advice.

00;04;16;18 – 00;04;43;00
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, I love that. And that’s why we’re here. And that’s my calling too. So we are two peas in a pod here before we dive in. Can we just have a moment? Because I want to just acknowledge some incredible milestones that you’ve had in your business in the last few years, since we chatted, you really have exploded. For those listening, Erica was based in Toronto and you just did an incredible with the Princess Margaret lottery show home.

00;04;43;02 – 00;04;50;06
Erica Gelman
It was the grand prize, $7.3 million grand prize show home. Yes.

00;04;50;08 – 00;04;55;11
Rebecca Hay
What was that experience like? And that was your first time doing anything like that? Correct.

00;04;55;15 – 00;05;20;00
Erica Gelman
My first time doing anything like that. And if any of your listeners or followers follow me along, I did tell the story last year that I had a blog once upon a time. I want to call it like 2012. It was a horrible blog. I had, like, I don’t think anybody had ever read it, but in my blog I used to talk about I would always go to the Princess Margaret Cho homes, always, always for as long as I can remember.

00;05;20;05 – 00;05;37;20
Erica Gelman
And there was one particular one, and I tried so hard to find it, but it was. It’s like blogspot and I can’t find it. It’s been offline for probably like over a decade, but at the end I signed off and I said, and one day there’ll be an Erica Gelman Design dream home. Funny enough, when I was writing it, I was like, it’s never going to happen.

00;05;37;22 – 00;06;07;02
Erica Gelman
But I still wrote it and I still put it out there and I can’t tell you, like, I honestly, it was just the most humbling experience. I the level of excitement, but also this like seriousness. It was so surreal. It was just such an incredible moment for myself, for my business, you know, for like the Erica, that was like knocking door to door, like offering like, free design consultations with like, little fliers I made off of Vista Print.

00;06;07;05 – 00;06;30;29
Erica Gelman
It was also benefiting the Princess Margaret Hospital. My dad had actually passed away six years ago, and he was a patient there. I’m going to try not to get emotional, but having that experience and having the the foundation where my dad was receiving treatment, we were working together on something. It also felt like a moment for me to be able to give back.

00;06;31;01 – 00;06;35;18
Erica Gelman
So everything, every single part of it was just incredible.

00;06;35;21 – 00;07;03;02
Rebecca Hay
Wow. Okay. I it’s like a full circle moment for you where all of the stars aligned. I have to say, I love that young 2012 Erica. Now one day she will design a show with Princess Margaret Showhome talk about that a lot. We talk about the power of intention and really calling your shot and then letting the universe figure it out, and how we don’t even know necessarily how something is going to come to be.

00;07;03;02 – 00;07;18;21
Rebecca Hay
Because at that time, that young 2012, Erica was like, like you just said, you didn’t even believe yourself when you wrote it down. But there was a calling in your heart and you knew, like, you know, deep down intuitively that you would be capable one day of doing that. You were not capable or set up for that in 2012.

00;07;18;24 – 00;07;19;26
Rebecca Hay
No. Oh, God.

00;07;19;26 – 00;07;40;25
Erica Gelman
No. Oh, I would have been fired. And you need an entire. This is not a one man operation. It was an entire team. I it’s complete, complete shout out to my entire team, especially on the logistics end. We were essentially setting up a home for someone to live. So it wasn’t just about yes, we did the interior design.

00;07;40;25 – 00;08;03;04
Erica Gelman
So we started with the build team and we did the full interior design from the ground up, which that is in of itself a huge accomplishment. But it’s something that we do every day. So it was obviously it was a little bit more familiar. Then we went into the decorative aspect. And again, it’s something that we do every day, but you still need a team to figure out the capacity of the 7000 square foot house.

00;08;03;06 – 00;08;16;16
Erica Gelman
But it wasn’t just furniture. It wasn’t just art. It’s not just accessories. It’s not just rugs. It is the towels. The past staff, the salt and pepper. Like somebody came into that home with their luggage and moved in.

00;08;16;16 – 00;08;18;02
Rebecca Hay
Wow. I didn’t know that.

00;08;18;04 – 00;08;31;02
Erica Gelman
Oh, yeah. Everything. This the soap. Like, it wasn’t just pretty soap pumps. We had to buy the soap. We had to. I know it sounds so silly, but it is everything. It is a huge undertaking.

00;08;31;09 – 00;08;37;05
Rebecca Hay
So how did you land that? Okay. Did they approach you or did you approach them?

00;08;37;12 – 00;08;58;19
Erica Gelman
No, no, I’m. It’s funny because when you say did you approach them I actually get calls now from people who are like, hey, can I get their phone number? No, I, I did not reach out to them. So as much as I don’t believe in luck, I do believe that this was there was a stroke of luck in here.

00;08;58;22 – 00;09;20;02
Erica Gelman
They were looking for a property, and our property was. I think we’re framing at this the stage. It was a client’s house. The home was meant to be a luxury spec. I don’t want to call it spec because I feel like that’s it was definitely not going to be spec at all. It was a custom luxury build that the purpose was to sell it.

00;09;20;06 – 00;09;41;04
Erica Gelman
So we we were at framing stages and the developer calls me and says, so the weirdest thing happened. I got a call from someone who tells me that they’re from a lottery. At this point, we didn’t know what the foundation was, from a lottery. And they want to come see the house. What do you think? They think it’s, like, legit.

00;09;41;04 – 00;09;42;27
Erica Gelman
And I said, no.

00;09;43;00 – 00;09;44;13
Rebecca Hay
This is sketchy.

00;09;44;15 – 00;10;01;13
Erica Gelman
I said, I said no, and he’s like, yeah, I didn’t think so either. Like, how do they even know us? I’m like, Ricky, hang up the phone. Luckily, he didn’t take my advice. And then they got on another call and then they got he got a little bit more information. We still had no idea that it was still Princess Margaret.

00;10;01;16 – 00;10;19;15
Erica Gelman
We had a site meeting with the, their representatives, and we did a walk through and we basically explained everything to them. They then came to our my office and I did a full presentation for them. So it’s as if I was doing a presentation for the client, because at this point it was just billed. We turned them all the renders we had.

00;10;19;18 – 00;10;43;10
Erica Gelman
We pulled out all the samples. We did a full presentation, as if my clients who had retained us were sitting there and waiting to know what their house, what their house was going to look like. Then it was a back and forth. It was not a quick process and but we still continued our build. So everything that you see from like the build and that was all original even at that point, because we didn’t have an end user.

00;10;43;10 – 00;11;05;00
Erica Gelman
And majority of the time when we meet with clients, we really try to understand their needs, their wants, like their non-negotiables, their must haves, and then they’re, you know, nice to have. But at this point, it was kind of just like, there’s no client. How do we make this come to life? So I use my own family and I designed the house for myself.

00;11;05;03 – 00;11;24;23
Erica Gelman
That was the whole premise, you know, the way that like the way that we live and the way that we entertain. And I have three small kids. How it is my family, my family of five, what would be our ideal home. And so that’s what basically I did. So when I was talking to the foundation and doing the presentation for them, I had to explain that all to them.

00;11;24;23 – 00;11;48;07
Erica Gelman
And really giving them this clear vision. It wasn’t just like, well, this is a pretty tile and this is another pretty tile. There was intent and I think that they really heard that story. I think that for them it wasn’t just about, again, these like pretty finishes that we had or this well thought out design, but it was so intentional and it was meant for family living, which is exactly what their vision was.

00;11;48;10 – 00;12;17;02
Erica Gelman
It just kind of progressed from there. And then from there we ended up doing then the furniture, which, funny enough, was actually so easy because our, our bricks and our foundation had already been. You know, when I say bricks and foundation, I don’t mean literal. I mean like the vision in my head, it was already laid. It was just a matter of now, like, let’s bring it to life with actual tangible pieces and let’s fill this structure in with, again, that same clear vision that I had from day one of building this home.

00;12;17;10 – 00;12;23;04
Rebecca Hay
I love everything about this. I feel like we could talk to her for an hour. One last question. Now who pays for everything?

00;12;23;10 – 00;12;24;07
Erica Gelman
The foundation.

00;12;24;13 – 00;12;43;24
Rebecca Hay
Okay, this is something I’ve always wanted to. I know there’s different in the US. They do it a little bit different way. So in the US, show homes are a home and each room is typically done by a different designer. It’s very, very rare that one designer would do the whole house. So the designers in my community, I’ve actually had someone come armed in an episode on the podcast where she shared her experience, but she’s in new Jersey.

00;12;43;25 – 00;13;03;26
Rebecca Hay
It’s very different, and they’re a fundraiser for the hospital as well. But those designers, they have to provide everything free of charge, their service and the materials and the labor, everything. So they’re bringing in their big borrowing and stealing from all of their trades to say, hey, can you come and do the electrical? Can you donate tile, can you donate plumbing fixtures?

00;13;03;26 – 00;13;16;29
Rebecca Hay
Can you do whatever it is based on the room they’re doing? And then the designer donates their time. So it’s really challenging investment. So the foundation pays because they’re raising money through the lottery obviously. Yeah. The foundation pays for all the materials and time.

00;13;17;02 – 00;13;41;23
Erica Gelman
The time is very discounted. It’s a donation essentially. And then even we have a budget. Right. So it’s not that we have an unlimited amount of, of money to spend. We really worked with the most incredible suppliers who were so on board and wanted to be a part of this incredible cause. So they were also giving us like insane discounts.

00;13;41;23 – 00;14;07;00
Erica Gelman
So we facilitate our designs. That was very clear. I had almost, I think and I don’t know, I don’t know like number wise, but I had probably like 80% of the house was custom. If I’m putting my name on it, it was never going to be this. Like, you know, you walk through like a decor center or like, you know, it’s just it was not to say it’s bad design, it’s just to accommodate that they’re looking for.

00;14;07;01 – 00;14;29;04
Erica Gelman
But my name was going to be on this and this was going to be such an incredible platform. And with such exposure, it had to be not just 99% of representation, it was a 100% representation of my brand. That and so because of that, like I, I because I have these relationships with the my suppliers, we were like, what can we do?

00;14;29;05 – 00;14;37;26
Erica Gelman
Like what kind of discounts can we get here? How can we make, how can we bring this vision to life and still be able to work within our budget?

00;14;37;29 – 00;14;52;24
Rebecca Hay
I love it, I’m proud of it. Work because I have no I have no part in it. But it’s just so amazing to watch you and see you shine and and to see I didn’t actually get to see the actual house, but the photos look amazing. So anyone who’s listening to this today, like definitely go check it out.

00;14;52;24 – 00;15;03;06
Rebecca Hay
The pictures will be online, I’m sure, on your website. So it’s interesting. So this is actually bringing us full circle back to contracts. Did you have a contract when you did the show home?

00;15;03;13 – 00;15;04;17
Erica Gelman
Of course.

00;15;04;20 – 00;15;07;06
Rebecca Hay
Was it your contract or was it their contract?

00;15;07;09 – 00;15;30;01
Erica Gelman
It was a mix of both. I had to present them with a proposal. And I know that you use the word contract. I use the word proposal, but it’s all of my terms and conditions are still in there because I don’t like this idea and I don’t know. I’m sure that everyone kind of does their own way, but I don’t like the idea of just handing off a proposal and then being like, okay, now you need to sign a contract when I’m sending you my proposal.

00;15;30;01 – 00;15;47;00
Erica Gelman
This is my proposal to work on your project. All of my terms and conditions are listed in that document. I want to be a part of your project. I want us to collaborate. I want us to have a beautiful relationship. But these are the terms of that relationship.

00;15;47;06 – 00;15;47;17
Rebecca Hay
Yeah.

00;15;47;22 – 00;16;10;15
Erica Gelman
And right there, it’s all encompassing. I put together a full proposal. Every single thing that was in my regular contract was in that contract. I’m not going to lie, it was obviously much easier. There was no revisions. It was tweaked, but my process was still exactly the same. So they had to submit it obviously to their legal team, and their legal team looked at it, and then I had to sign something with them as well.

00;16;10;15 – 00;16;26;07
Erica Gelman
But that was more so for like payment structures. And we actually went back and forth a little bit on that too. So I submitted mine, they submitted theirs, and I said, no, this won’t work for me. And they said, well, yours won’t work for me. And so then we met half way. It’s a it was a complete business transaction.

00;16;26;12 – 00;16;26;25
Rebecca Hay
Yeah.

00;16;27;01 – 00;16;31;08
Erica Gelman
We met all of our milestones that we made sure that it fit on both sides.

00;16;31;10 – 00;16;48;15
Rebecca Hay
I’m curious as we go through projects and as we experience working with clients, and this has been my experience, I tend to tweak our contract. We’re always adding things right. We’re shifting. We’re changing. It’s not like you get a contract on the internet and an employer looks at it and boom, you’re good and go for it. And that’s just not reality.

00;16;48;15 – 00;17;03;09
Rebecca Hay
And business is living and breathing. I mean, I love that you say you do proposal on contract and once I do the same thing, that’s exactly what I teach my students inside our process for the same reason. Why do you need two separate documents? They need to see everything. Like there’s I want to surprise people in a contract.

00;17;03;09 – 00;17;17;21
Rebecca Hay
I want to talk about all the things you’ve read. But was there anything from that particular experience of like seeing their contract and meeting in the middle that you thought, I’m going to tweak something in my contract. I learned something here. Or were you feeling at that point pretty secure and happy with what you had?

00;17;17;24 – 00;17;40;06
Erica Gelman
I have changed my contract since, but nothing to do with them. No, I can’t say that because my contract stayed my contract, all of my terms and conditions stayed the same way. The only difference was their payment schedule. We shifted some some dates around, but it was all still reliant on construction. So I have changed since. But again, nothing to do with them.

00;17;40;11 – 00;17;55;17
Rebecca Hay
Okay, the last time we were here we talked about a contract. You shared about it. It was like a sofa or something. And they went want to and you learned. So I don’t want to go into detail in that story because that’s in the other episode. So let’s talk about what has changed since then. Oh.

00;17;55;20 – 00;18;23;00
Erica Gelman
I got to take a deep breath for this one. So much has changed. I am I feel like a forever student when I get to the point where I’m kind of like, I’m done with even thinking of proposals like, I’ll probably retire at that point. Like I just feel that every single project I learn something new, every single project is different, every client is going to be different, and the word different doesn’t necessarily have to have a negative spin to it.

00;18;23;03 – 00;18;44;16
Erica Gelman
It’s just different from what I had previously experienced. I would say that my terms have expanded. My proposals are now 15 pages. I actually had gone back to see what my proposal had looked like at the time that we had originally filmed, and I think it was, if I’m not mistaken, I think it was like maybe eight pages.

00;18;44;16 – 00;18;47;00
Erica Gelman
So it’s almost doubled since then?

00;18;47;03 – 00;18;48;02
Rebecca Hay
Yes.

00;18;48;04 – 00;18;59;22
Erica Gelman
Even from when we had met, which I thought I had a really great contract and I probably did at that time. But my business has also grown and it’s expanded, and we have done different things.

00;18;59;23 – 00;19;17;11
Rebecca Hay
Just for reference, that was March 16th in 2023. Oh, so it’s been more than two years. Oh yeah. Episode 147. So that’s a lot of change. Doubling your contract rank and adding all those additional terms and conditions. That’s only two years. That’s not that much time. But yeah, there’s been a lot of change, which I think is cool.

00;19;17;14 – 00;19;41;19
Erica Gelman
Oh yeah. Actually let me even go back to ground zero. I used to be completely flat fee 100% flat fee. I didn’t even want to think about it. I didn’t want to know about it. I was know this works for me, for me. And I’m not saying that this is necessarily the right way. And I know that there’s huge discussions in our industry of like flat versus billable.

00;19;41;21 – 00;20;03;18
Erica Gelman
It’s stopped working. For me. It just the magnitude that we were working with, the flat fee just did not make sense for my business. So what I’ve done so again used to be flat fee from concept to execution, all inclusive buffet. You can get as many plates as you want and fill them up. And they’re nobody’s charging you anything extra.

00;20;03;20 – 00;20;30;22
Erica Gelman
What I ended up realizing was how much was unknown in the process. Because of those unknowns, I really had to take this approach of what can I control versus what can’t I control? I can control my first two phases, the way that I kind of see the project is it’s it’s divided into three phases, so I can control the first two phases.

00;20;30;22 – 00;20;38;01
Erica Gelman
I can control how long it takes for us to do the space. And I’m talking about, I would say more so design decorative is.

00;20;38;01 – 00;20;38;18
Rebecca Hay
It’s.

00;20;38;20 – 00;20;59;12
Erica Gelman
Similar but it’s a little bit different. So when it comes to design. So if we’re building houses from the ground up or if you’re renovating the space, planning the getting to know the clients, really starting a foundation to the project, I know how long that’s going to take. I know how long our design phases are going to take, so I know how long our floor plans take.

00;20;59;12 – 00;21;08;20
Erica Gelman
I know how long our construction packages take. I know how long the development of the design takes, the sourcing, all that that is all controlled by me.

00;21;08;20 – 00;21;12;17
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, that’s done in-house too. Right? You don’t have a lot of external factors.

00;21;12;19 – 00;21;35;19
Erica Gelman
No, no. And if we go a little bit over that’s our problem. If we go a little bit under there’s a little win there. It’s usually not under. But you know I know within reason how long that’s going to take. The second the project gets signed off and my construction package is now in the hands of the build team, I lose all control.

00;21;35;21 – 00;21;54;16
Erica Gelman
I lose all control of timelines. And when I say I lose all control, I don’t mean I lose control of the project. I lose control of how long the project is going to take. So let’s say, and I’m just going to throw out some easy numbers to work with. Let’s say for my implementation phase, I charge $10,000.

00;21;54;21 – 00;21;56;08
Rebecca Hay
I hope to charge more than that.

00;21;56;11 – 00;22;14;17
Erica Gelman
Yeah, I charge okay. I’m just I’m just calling out an easy number. So let’s say charge $10,000 for the implementation phase. In my head, let’s say something is going to take a year and we just worked on a project where we thought it was going to be done in about a year and a half, and we’re onto year three.

00;22;14;20 – 00;22;24;12
Erica Gelman
Oh my God. And luckily for these clients, their contract was still flat fee. So I will tell you, for a year and a half I have lost all that money.

00;22;24;15 – 00;22;28;19
Rebecca Hay
Any time your team is putting in, the money’s gone. You’re paying them out of pocket.

00;22;28;22 – 00;22;43;12
Erica Gelman
When you’re working on a smaller scale, it’s manageable. So, you know, you think you’re doing a renovation and it’s going to take three months and you guys end up at four months. You should have a buffer. But what I’m talking about years.

00;22;43;15 – 00;22;55;11
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, that extra month isn’t going to accrue to any hours that you’re like, oh my gosh, now what do I do? I’m running out of money in the bank. But a whole extra year and a half if you’re not flush with projects. Yeah. Wow. Big lesson.

00;22;55;13 – 00;23;18;01
Erica Gelman
Huge lesson when you, you know, when you walk into the unknown, you have to be learning a lesson if you come out of it. Not learning a lesson. Well, I don’t know if I don’t know if there’s major benefit to that. So so as of I would say this year I have changed all of my new proposals. So the first two phases, which is everything that that we supply for you, they’re all milestone.

00;23;18;07 – 00;23;42;27
Erica Gelman
They are complete flat fee. Everything is included in there in my proposal. So, it’s a complete step process. So it’s not a step process like we’re going to come in and measure. You know, that’s that’s not what it is. It is this is what you’re going to receive in presentation number one. This is what you’re going to receive in presentation number two, I also have the location of my presentation in my proposal.

00;23;43;01 – 00;24;02;18
Erica Gelman
And I know it sounds so redundant to say that, but when you have your and you have the location and that your client says to you, oh, hey, by the way, can you meet at my house instead? Yeah. If you are putting a proposal out there, do it in the exact format that you want the project to go.

00;24;02;20 – 00;24;20;03
Erica Gelman
And I have, I have the time in there. So I say approximately and like I don’t I don’t stick within that. But I’m also, you know, I say 2 to 3 hours. So if we’re going onto like eight hours, which I have been in an hour presentation, I will cut it off and I’ll say, we’re going to need to revisit some.

00;24;20;10 – 00;24;39;29
Rebecca Hay
There’s a point where no one can retain no information, especially clients. It’s too much. But that is interesting. I I’ve never thought of having that in the contract, the time frame for the presentation, but here’s what I would typically take. And you could even say, you know, should the client wish to extend and have further conversation, an additional time will be booked at an additional fee or something like that.

00;24;40;04 – 00;24;50;28
Erica Gelman
Yeah. So you guys have to both be respectful of each other. This is a full out partnership. So I started putting time slots in there just so they’re actually aware that it is not a 15 minute meeting.

00;24;51;04 – 00;25;10;04
Rebecca Hay
What I also like about this, Erica, that you’re saying is, yes, being respectful of the client’s time. But also one thing that I’ve seen, and I’m curious if you’ve seen this with other clients, is I think that sometimes as creatives, we tend to talk more than we probably need to. We tend to over explain the design and why and how all of this.

00;25;10;06 – 00;25;27;22
Rebecca Hay
But I think at a certain level of clientele, they don’t need to know the backstory behind every item. They don’t want to know. It’s like, I think there’s a level of trust that comes there to, like, I trust you. Okay, maybe I want to see a couple things. Where do I sign? Let’s move forward so I can get back to my day job.

00;25;27;24 – 00;25;50;20
Rebecca Hay
I think sometimes as creatives we don’t realize that, and especially if we haven’t worked with clients at that level, that’s up to the designers listening. If you are craving those clients, like you need to get really succinct in communicating, oh my God, yes, and really be there to deliver for them, because at a certain level, those clients don’t need so much touch.

00;25;50;20 – 00;25;54;24
Rebecca Hay
They just want to know that it’s getting done. So have you seen that with other high level clients?

00;25;54;28 – 00;26;21;09
Erica Gelman
Absolutely. They’re either having the decision maker for the design and then there’s the decision maker for financial. Sometimes it’s both right. That’s part of the psychology of working with clients is figuring that out. So the clients that we’ve had that are very time conscious, they usually don’t come to the meetings and they’ll send their wife, their representative, who is going to be the one who is involved in the the decision making for design.

00;26;21;09 – 00;26;43;14
Erica Gelman
And they want to know all the details, like they want to know that this bathroom was inspired by the Product Cafe in Milan, in the pop up shop. Like they want to know and they have the time and they they want to hear about it and they want to like, have this emotional connection. And we as designers and creatives, you should like you really should have an emotional connection to your design.

00;26;43;14 – 00;27;03;10
Erica Gelman
If you’re just pumping things out and your your eye at that point, like you’re you’re not going to go too far, you really do need to have an emotional connection to what you’re doing. And sometimes we get offended when the clients aren’t emotionally attached. But you, we have to understand that it’s two completely separate worlds. This is our world, and we should love it.

00;27;03;10 – 00;27;20;23
Erica Gelman
And we should be so proud of it. But sometimes they’re coming to us because they do not have a sense and they don’t have an understanding, and they will never feel what you feel towards that top. Like, I could look at a token that, oh my God, this is the most beautiful color. And I.

00;27;20;25 – 00;27;21;17
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, I.

00;27;21;17 – 00;27;42;25
Erica Gelman
Think that we just need to again, part of the psychology of design and running your business is understanding who your client is. And again, if the creative decision maker wants to be involved and they have the time and they want to hear all about the inspiration and and they want to hear every nitty gritty detail, great. But whoever that client is, it could be a single person.

00;27;42;25 – 00;28;03;20
Erica Gelman
It could be a corporation. Like when you start working with people that there’s no emotional attachment because maybe it’s not even their home. You really have to know and understand who your client is and tailor the way that you deliver to them. And that doesn’t mean that you have to change your process. It just means that again, you are coming together.

00;28;03;20 – 00;28;13;23
Erica Gelman
This is a business venture, and every part of that business venture really just needs to be sought out the same way that you would start any other business.

00;28;13;26 – 00;28;15;07
Rebecca Hay
Okay. Should we talk about revision?

00;28;15;09 – 00;28;16;28
Erica Gelman
Yes, please.

00;28;17;00 – 00;28;33;21
Rebecca Hay
Everybody should know, but no designer I know loves dealing with revisions because they take on a life of their own. Sometimes you think you’re holding, like, a firm line, and you’re saying there’s one round of revisions, but then there’s like, one little additional email ask, oh, we can probably include that. And then weeks later you’re still going back and forth.

00;28;33;22 – 00;28;39;10
Rebecca Hay
So let’s talk about what have you learned. What have you changed. Oh my God. So many things do the highlight reel.

00;28;39;13 – 00;28;59;24
Erica Gelman
So I used to have my revisions only in terms and conditions. And I thought that was enough. But terms and conditions are like font I don’t know. Two they’re not they’re probably font five. As much as I think that the client is reading it. And I used to go over and read the contracts with them, I don’t think that they are getting everything.

00;28;59;24 – 00;29;25;20
Erica Gelman
There’s probably key elements that they are grasping and they’re understanding, but having that in terms in your terms and conditions is one thing. Having a super clear identifier in your process is a whole other because it tells the client this is the time for revisions, and we used to do revisions as they come. So we we usually have three different design presentations and we usually do it per floor.

00;29;25;20 – 00;29;46;19
Erica Gelman
What we used to do is after after our presentation we would do all the revisions, send them off. And then it became this kind of game of like ping pong. It said, no, we are going to have a strict revisions phase. It’s going to be after they’ve seen everything. And what I will say is we will make adjustments.

00;29;46;19 – 00;30;09;08
Erica Gelman
If it’s something that’s like super major, we will tell them that though. So we’ll do like we’ll make this one major change because it could potentially have an effect on something else. But everything else will be clarified and shown to you within a revisions phase. So the revisions phase is 100% part of my process. It is clear as day it you cannot miss it.

00;30;09;08 – 00;30;26;24
Erica Gelman
It is just as big and just as noticeable as their design presentation and what they’re going to see within that design presentation. So what we do is we take notes after every single meeting. We send it off to them. We tell the clients, these are the notes that we’ve had throughout the meeting. These are the changes that you’ve requested.

00;30;27;01 – 00;30;48;15
Erica Gelman
If there is anything else, because they do go home with a tangible copy and the digital copy. If there’s anything else that we’ve potentially missed, let us know and we’ll put that into our revisions phase. We then have a revisions document that we put together. Once all three presentations are done, we send that document to the client to confirm.

00;30;48;18 – 00;31;19;01
Erica Gelman
Yes. Is it an extra step? Absolutely. However, in there it says after these revisions are complete, anything further will be an additional scope of work into your project. Easy. So there isn’t this like, oh wait, can you just tweak that for me? Can you just change that for me? My favorite line I love my clients, but my favorite line is what do you think about doing this or what is your ideal situation?

00;31;19;08 – 00;31;24;01
Erica Gelman
I’m like, I just showed you what my ideal situation. I just got your presentation.

00;31;24;04 – 00;31;42;18
Rebecca Hay
That they’re not quite sold on. Yeah okay. Can we just passion I can I really love this advice. So designers listening like if you’re double multitasking come back to us here. This is really interesting. This idea that you do the presentation and it’s not just a verbal okay. We’re going to change those things. Let me know. Send us an email in the next week.

00;31;42;18 – 00;31;58;14
Rebecca Hay
If there’s anything you, you know that comes to mind that you want to change. I love that you’re doing this like you’re writing everything down. All the notes from the meetings, all the verbal conversation is being documented. Which is also why I recommend designers hire an assistant, even if it’s just for the presentation. But now there’s actually.

00;31;58;14 – 00;32;15;14
Erica Gelman
There’s an amazing app that you can get that just recorded and then it puts into it. So if you if you’re not there yet, I do agree I do agree having an additional team member. But if you if you’re not there yet and you’re like, I can’t afford to have someone working on this project, get an app.

00;32;15;17 – 00;32;36;27
Rebecca Hay
Awesome. Okay. So you can record it, but it needs to be written down. Yes. And then you send that to the client. Now they have time to look at the notes to make sure that you heard and understood and interpreted the conversation correctly. This paint color is going to be blue or not yellow or whatever. And then they have an opportunity to add to that an understanding or tweak or edit.

00;32;36;29 – 00;32;48;28
Erica Gelman
Sure, absolutely. Yeah. If there is something that maybe wasn’t caught during the presentation, absolutely. We give them an opportunity to add. But once the final list is done, it’s done.

00;32;49;01 – 00;33;05;10
Rebecca Hay
What if there are some things I know the designers listening. They’re like, okay, this is really smart, I love this. We’re going to write it all down. We’re going to get the client to confirm. Also, that means you’re not doing anything yet. Your team is not starting to pull the substitutions or starting to look or editing the CAD drawings.

00;33;05;13 – 00;33;20;03
Rebecca Hay
You’re not doing anything. Because what if the client writes back and they’re like, oh, actually, we changed our mind. So you are waiting until they send that back and you’re like, okay, this is the time, I love that. What do you do in this situation where clients like, well, I just need to see more while people are options.

00;33;20;05 – 00;33;52;01
Erica Gelman
I tell them right on the discovery call. I tell them our process. Our process is we go and we source everything. Sourcing is not a day of shopping. Sourcing is a resource for us to be able to implement a proper design. So if they say, oh, well, you know, I’m someone who needs to see ten different tile options, I straight up tell them then we may not be the right fit for each other because we do not do shopping excursions.

00;33;52;06 – 00;34;10;12
Erica Gelman
That’s not what we are. There are going to be some designers that want to I would recommend at that point be a consultant for that project. I’m not saying in general, but be a consultant on that project. Maybe just meet the client is looking for reassurance. Maybe they’re looking for someone’s eye. It’s not going to be your design.

00;34;10;12 – 00;34;32;22
Erica Gelman
You’re almost acting as an assistant to a homeowner or the client who really just needs, like I said, like a reassurance or an extra just an extra person to confirm selections that they think that they’re going to make. I tell them, no, it’s a resource for us to be able to pull together the entire design, and you will see a full design come to life if you want to see an additional.

00;34;32;22 – 00;34;48;12
Erica Gelman
Sometimes we will throw in like we’ll do because we do renders. So sometimes we’ll throw in, you know, oh, we love this wallpaper. If it’s too much for you, this is what it would look like if we just did a grass cloth and then I also have this theory. It’s called the white kitchen effect. And we use that in our office.

00;34;48;14 – 00;35;06;02
Erica Gelman
And it started because a client came to us and said for my kitchen, when we were, when we sat down and we were discovering all the kind of intricacies of the design and really kind of developing this design language with her, she said, I want a white kitchen, like I want something super classic. And I said to her, but it completely doesn’t match the rest of your home.

00;35;06;02 – 00;35;22;01
Erica Gelman
She was, I loved it. She like, she was so kooky and she wanted details and she wanted layering. And she came to us because she she love that. But for her kitchen, she’s like, but I want to white kitchen. Like my kitchen has to be white and it has to be classic. I said to her, I don’t think it’s the right direction.

00;35;22;01 – 00;35;37;04
Erica Gelman
However, it’s your home and you’re going to. You need to love it and you’re you’re the one who’s ultimately funding this. So we’re going to give you that white kitchen. What we did is we gave her a white kitchen as a render. And then option two, we gave her a pink kitchen.

00;35;37;06 – 00;35;40;15
Rebecca Hay
Very different than a white kitchen. Like you couldn’t be more different.

00;35;40;17 – 00;35;43;04
Erica Gelman
Guess which kitchen is currently in her house right now?

00;35;43;09 – 00;35;44;03
Rebecca Hay
The pink one.

00;35;44;04 – 00;35;47;06
Erica Gelman
The pink one. She loved pink. Even her husband love pink.

00;35;47;06 – 00;35;52;03
Rebecca Hay
Is a risk taker. She loves that. And yet she was worried about the kitchen. Isn’t that interesting? Good for you.

00;35;52;09 – 00;35;58;11
Erica Gelman
I gave her what she wanted, so I always say give them the white kitchen, but give them what we really think is going to work.

00;35;58;13 – 00;36;01;27
Rebecca Hay
So what they think they want. But then it’s like what they secretly desire.

00;36;02;01 – 00;36;03;04
Erica Gelman
Yes.

00;36;03;06 – 00;36;09;21
Rebecca Hay
Okay, I want to I want to circle back to the contract. Go for. These are so good. Is there anything else that you think designers have to know?

00;36;09;27 – 00;36;51;16
Erica Gelman
I have another big one time line, not just of the project, but how long a your feet is valid for. B if there is no communication within a project, or if there is no significant progression in a project. Designers, I beg of you, if you’re taking anything out of this contract advice, put this in there because there has been a situation which I can’t talk too much about, but providing a fee in a contract that that does not have an expiry date means that somebody can come to you three years later and say, I want that.

00;36;51;16 – 00;37;08;10
Rebecca Hay
Number, I’ve been here. You make you do a proposal for someone. It’s let’s say our design is going to be $15,000, right? They’re like, we’re not going to move ahead at this time. For whatever reason, or you just don’t hear from them and they come back to you a few years later and they’re like, okay, we’re ready to get going, because this just happened to be yes, we’re ready to get going.

00;37;08;13 – 00;37;26;18
Rebecca Hay
And then you have to tell them, no, that fee is no longer valid. But what I’m hearing from you is like that particular potential client. If they’re able to just repair, I don’t know, whatever they might say. Oh, but this proposal you gave us in 2022 doesn’t say that it’s not valid after six period of time.

00;37;26;19 – 00;37;52;14
Erica Gelman
Exactly. So I will expand even further. So you could potentially put together a proposal, a full contract. Your client and yourself can both sign the contract. You can even get a retainer. You can be retained for these services. However, what happens if you don’t hear from the client? There is a delay with getting permits. There is no architectural plans.

00;37;52;20 – 00;38;25;09
Erica Gelman
There is absolutely no progression on the project. And let’s call it two years later, they come to you and they’re like, all right, we’re ready to go now. Let’s let’s rock and roll. You’ve not done any work. However, you are in a binding contract already. And so that pertains to design fees. But it’s the same thing for a product, the same thing with really like any part of your proposal, your contract, there has to be one in expiry date.

00;38;25;09 – 00;38;51;07
Erica Gelman
So this is this fee is valid for 30 days, 90 days, 60 days, whatever that is. I have something in my contract now in my terms that says that if there is no progression on a project for six months, then we have to revisit the fee because it’s six months of so many things can happen. Also, if somebody disappears for six months and then they come back and now you cannot put them back in queue.

00;38;51;07 – 00;39;07;07
Erica Gelman
Six months ago you could six months ago, you had the capability, you had the resources. You were able to fit them in. Okay. Let’s go. Let’s start your project. In six months from now, you could be knee deep in other projects. And now they come to you and they’re like, okay, well, I signed the contract with you. I’m ready to go.

00;39;07;07 – 00;39;13;00
Erica Gelman
Like, let’s, let’s create this. And then you have to tell them, like you need to wait, right?

00;39;13;00 – 00;39;16;25
Rebecca Hay
You don’t have the capacity. You don’t have the team. Like, yeah, there isn’t going to be a capacity limit.

00;39;16;25 – 00;39;38;11
Erica Gelman
There’s got to be. So I have I have six months with no progression. Then we have to then we can come back. Also for me, what I had, actually funny enough, during Covid and I don’t know why I took it off, but I had like if any kind of delays so not related to, being shut down or, or city permits or anything like that, but any delays from the clients.

00;39;38;11 – 00;40;04;07
Erica Gelman
And because what I was experiencing was because there was this unforeseen situation and nobody really knew what was happening. Clients themselves were putting pauses on the project. And then if they took too long, I did have an expiry date. So if this project exceeds X amount of time and a project I was working on, which was not related, like again, it didn’t it wasn’t related to city permits or anything like that.

00;40;04;12 – 00;40;34;08
Erica Gelman
It was just the client themselves. They had paused for whatever reason. The project went on way too long. They came back to us and I said, well, the proposal is essentially expired. If you want to move forward, we can now move into a different fee and we ended up actually just working on retainer at that point and were billing hourly because we were we’d work with the project for like two years, and this was just now cleaning up the project and like and doing the design, management and site visits and all that kind of stuff.

00;40;34;14 – 00;40;38;16
Erica Gelman
So we ended up moving to a retainer and then per our billing.

00;40;38;19 – 00;40;53;14
Rebecca Hay
That’s a really good interesting point. It’s I think I have something in mind about if delays are caused by any third party contractors. Yes, that we’re not responsible. And then there could be additional fees and what have you. But I don’t have any mention of a client causing the delay.

00;40;53;21 – 00;40;54;17
Erica Gelman
Oh yeah.

00;40;54;20 – 00;40;58;02
Rebecca Hay
Which is probably more likely going.

00;40;58;02 – 00;41;17;18
Erica Gelman
Back to the way that I structure my my fees now is I have no control over what’s happening over there. What happens if the contractor takes, which is happened to us in a project? We started three projects. I when I say started like all from the ground up projects, all houses got demoed within like weeks of each other.

00;41;17;18 – 00;41;33;13
Erica Gelman
We were at. It was actually an insane time because we were creating construction packages. All of this, like all of our three big projects, were in the exact same phases, and both of them ended up being finished within the same timeframe, and another one took an extra year.

00;41;33;16 – 00;41;34;11
Rebecca Hay
Wow.

00;41;34;14 – 00;41;35;05
Erica Gelman
Yeah.

00;41;35;07 – 00;41;37;01
Rebecca Hay
Because of the client? No.

00;41;37;04 – 00;41;47;21
Erica Gelman
To be honest, I don’t know exactly who caused these delays. I think it was just a an overall, just the way that the project had moved. But it was an extra year longer than the other two.

00;41;47;22 – 00;41;52;20
Rebecca Hay
Right. And your team is still having to work on that. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

00;41;52;22 – 00;42;20;09
Erica Gelman
Honestly, I mean, again, the like the structure and the, making making everything super clear and super identify, that’s I would say check one, check two. Do not forget the the time frame because that will especially if you are someone who is working on a flat fee that is going to be your make it or break it. And unfortunately you can go under as a business.

00;42;20;09 – 00;42;41;21
Erica Gelman
And I hate to throw this negativity out there, but if you’re running a business and you have to ensure that you’re paying salaries and rent and all the utilities and all the things that you have as your monthly expenses, and you now are dealing with a huge loss, you need to protect yourself. And that’s what the contracts are for.

00;42;41;26 – 00;43;16;26
Erica Gelman
And I know that that was something that we had mentioned last time we spoke. That and I’m guilty of this. My contracts were completely one sided to make the clients feel comfortable and make them feel that I was going to be there for them. And I’m, I’m I’m not here to gouge you or any of that stuff. And I was it was completely one sided and then what I realized is that the contract is you are entering into a into a business dealings with this other person, and you need to protect yourself at all costs.

00;43;16;28 – 00;43;18;13
Erica Gelman
That’s what your contract did.

00;43;18;16 – 00;43;27;23
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, absolutely. What is one last nugget of wisdom that you can share with our audience today is, or something that we didn’t touch on or anything specific you want to really send them home with?

00;43;27;28 – 00;43;56;11
Erica Gelman
Honestly, like I said from the very beginning, take away something from every single experience, whether that be negative or positive. And just because something fails, it doesn’t mean that you have failed. It just means that that was an opportunity for you to learn. And it doesn’t mean that it’s always going to be like that. And that’s why you really need to be so mindful and so open to really experiencing these things, good or bad.

00;43;56;18 – 00;44;13;16
Erica Gelman
If you want to be a successful business owner designer, nothing goes as planned. So make sure that you have your plan B, but really take it all in. And again, like I said, if something fails, it does not mean that you have failed.

00;44;13;19 – 00;44;31;07
Rebecca Hay
Yeah. And what I’m hearing is don’t let it discourage you from keeping going. And so much of success is just falling, getting back up, falling, getting back up. You know, it’s just like when we learn to walk as a toddler, you follow your face, like, all the time. It doesn’t mean that toddlers give up. I’m like, oh, screw it, I’m not meant for walking.

00;44;31;14 – 00;44;58;13
Rebecca Hay
We all figure it out. And so I think what I’m seeing as a pattern of the the successful design firms and the designers that I speak to is that they have had many setbacks, big and small. It’s what you do with those lessons and how you learn from them and how you implement them. And I love this conversation around contracts because you’re telling us everything that’s happening in our business is an opportunity for us to sharpen our pencil and really get more clarity so that we can prevent it happening again.

00;44;58;18 – 00;45;18;09
Erica Gelman
Oh for sure. Listen, if it happens once, it’s a mistake. If it happens, the exact same thing happens again. There’s a problem. Never paint yourself with this like victim brush. So and I think that and again I was very guilty of it. There was something that would go wrong within a project, and I would feel like I was the victim, you know.

00;45;18;09 – 00;45;40;22
Erica Gelman
But I’m trying so hard and I love this project so much. And and I’m, you know, I put my heart and soul into x, y, z. And then the client is like, yeah, but this happened and this happened and this happened. If you don’t hear that, if you just paint yourself as the victim in this situation, then you are never going to come out of it and really learn from those mistakes.

00;45;40;22 – 00;45;58;24
Erica Gelman
Because now on that the next project after that, you should already say to yourself, well, I’m not going to make that mistake and I’m not going to make that mistake, and I’m not going to make that one, because I’ve already learned from them. And now I know, I think and I tell this to my team all the time, like our job is to make sure that the clients are satisfied.

00;45;59;00 – 00;46;21;22
Erica Gelman
They’ve come to us at a luxury level. We have to provide them with the expected service, but at the same time, like understand that they have an expectation from us. The expectation is that we deliver. So we have to know that if there’s a mistake that had been made, make sure it’s never happening again. And it’s not a them problem, it’s a you problem.

00;46;21;22 – 00;46;24;18
Erica Gelman
Like you need to figure that out and you need to change.

00;46;24;21 – 00;46;43;18
Rebecca Hay
Yes, I know in the early years so much of my mindset was the client this the client that it’s the client’s fault. But ultimately I was the comment and nominator. And so figuring it out and and I think the lesson today, everyone listening is like, you can be successful, you can grow to the heights that you want to grow to.

00;46;43;18 – 00;47;03;07
Rebecca Hay
You just have to recognize the setbacks are learning opportunities and what Erica’s given us today, thank you so much, are some really concrete, tangible tactics that we can use. Their actual things we can change in our contract to protect us. But also, you’ve just learned some lessons from Erica so that hopefully you don’t get yourself into that same situation.

00;47;03;07 – 00;47;21;04
Rebecca Hay
And one thing that I’ve done, and I’ll leave this tip for everyone listening, is we would have a running list inside us on excuse us on our project management, where it was like a contract update. So anytime something would happen in a project, I would say to my team, okay, let’s make sure we add this thing into our contract.

00;47;21;08 – 00;47;39;13
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, put it down on paper or into asana, I would forget. And then that same thing would reoccur in the next project. And so my administrative assistant would, you know, maybe once a month or I don’t remember, how frequently would they go through that list, update the contract, send it to me for review. So it was literally living breathing document.

00;47;39;13 – 00;47;46;10
Rebecca Hay
And I hope those of you listening here today realize, unfortunately, it’s not necessarily a one and done if you want to have a successful business.

00;47;46;13 – 00;48;10;06
Erica Gelman
Oh yeah. And your business is constantly scaling, well, that’s not everybody wants to scale. But if it if it does organically, if it does scale, your contract should scale at the same pace as your business. And if you have the same contract that you’re using when you were doing paint consultations and now you’re building homes from the ground up, there is some sort of misalignment.

00;48;10;06 – 00;48;13;22
Erica Gelman
So your contract has to grow with your business.

00;48;13;25 – 00;48;29;17
Rebecca Hay
Thank you so much for bringing your wisdom today, Erica, for sharing all the knowledge. I’m so appreciative. I’m so excited to see where you take your business in the next two years. Why? It was only two years, I realize since we chatted last and so much has changed. Where can everyone find and follow you?

00;48;29;17 – 00;48;46;01
Erica Gelman
I am on Instagram daily. Erica Underscore Gorman. My website is Erica gorman.com. If you do reach out on Instagram, I am the one who is the person behind the DMs. So definitely reach out. That’s where you can probably find me the most amazing.

00;48;46;01 – 00;48;47;06
Rebecca Hay
Thank you so much.

00;48;47;10 – 00;48;51;20
Erica Gelman
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00;48;51;22 – 00;49;12;04
Rebecca Hay
All right. I mean, how great is Erica? Thank you, Erica, so much for bringing all the knowledge, all the wisdom and just openly sharing, like sharing so candidly. There’s so much power when we get together and we share. And that is what I love about this community. That’s what I love about the programs I’ve created, because we get designers together and community, and that is where the power is.

00;49;12;06 – 00;49;35;23
Rebecca Hay
We learn from each other so much more than when we just sit there. We Google something or we’re trying to find the answer. Hearing real time stories, real life experience and how they’ve shaped a business is so impactful. So guys, this is your Wake-Up call that if you don’t have a contract, you need one. Go back and listen to the first episode that I do with Erica, because there’s some very different nuggets that are just as valuable in that episode.

00;49;35;25 – 00;49;55;16
Rebecca Hay
And I can tell you right now that that is episode number 147. It’s called Protecting yourself with the contract. And if you guys really enjoyed, the talk that we had about designing a show home, I have an episode with Jennifer Muirhead. She’s one of my paupers, based in the US and she has done a show home as well.

00;49;55;18 – 00;50;15;27
Rebecca Hay
We did an episode. 154 is the ins and outs of designing a show house. It’s also very interesting in a different aspect, so thank you for listening guys. I’m sure you took a lot away from this conversation. I’d love to know. Is there something we missed? Tammy? Miriam, is there something we missed? Is there something about contracts that you want to know more about?

00;50;16;00 – 00;50;34;21
Rebecca Hay
Is there an area that you’re struggling with? Please let us know so that we can come back on and answer your questions and really share even more in depth with Mike, which I can’t even imagine doing because that was already so, so good. Please give Erica a follow on Instagram and I would love it if you could share this episode with your designer bestie.

00;50;34;23 – 00;50;59;09
Rebecca Hay
Do you know someone who could really benefit from this conversation? Please share it with a friend. The more we share our knowledge and our learnings, the stronger we all become as an industry. I think we can elevate. So please do share this episode and I will see you soon.
Hey.

June 26, 2025

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