Beyond Survival Mode: Building a Stable, Profitable Interior Design Business

If you’ve been in business a few years and you’re realising that “winging it” is no longer sustainable, this episode will feel like a deep exhale. This week, we’re diving into the systems, processes, and mindset shifts that help designers move beyond survival mode and step into confident, stable growth.

Rebecca sits down with Dallas-based design-build founder Mae Reedy, who shares how documented processes, clear boundaries, and intentional time blocking allowed her to scale from solo designer to running a thriving seven-figure firm.

This conversation is loaded with practical insights for designers who aren’t beginners anymore, but who are ready to level up their operations and build a business that feels grounded, predictable, and profitable.

episode highlights

1. Why survival mode becomes the default for many designers in years 2–5

2. How documenting your systems unlocks true creative freedom

3. When (and how) to hire your first team member with confidence

4. The importance of time blocking and boundaries for sustainable growth

5. How to avoid over-promising design timelines—and set realistic expectations

6. What Mae Reedy learned from navigating crisis projects and running a design-build firm

7. The mindset shift from “doing it all” to leading like a CEO

8. Why SOPs matter long before you think you’re “big enough” to need them

Episode Resources

• Learn more about Mae Reedy on her website and follow her on Instagram.
• The Game with Alex Hormozi

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

00;00;00;01 – 00;00;18;04
Mae Reedy
Everything was here, and I realized if I’m ever going to train someone to work underneath me or beside me, I have to have everything written down. Everything needs to be an order of operations, an order of steps, so that we can always pick up where the other left off. It creates predictability.

00;00;18;06 – 00;00;50;07
Rebecca Hay
All right, I’m Rebecca Hay, and I’ve built a successful interior design business by Trial and Error podcast 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;00;50;09 – 00;01;15;16
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’s episode is an incredible interview with a very savvy business owner. Her name is Mae Reedy, and she is the founder of Mae Really Build and Design.

00;01;15;18 – 00;01;45;16
Rebecca Hay
She is a Dallas based general contractor and principal designer. She is an incredible resource, a very savvy businesswoman for someone who’s been in business for over a decade and decided to not only be a designer, but also get certified as a general contractor. As a woman in the industry, we talk about that in this episode, and she has so many great nuggets about growing your team, showing up as a CEO and what that looks like.

00;01;45;16 – 00;02;12;03
Rebecca Hay
We talk about process. We talk about the power of systems and which ones make a difference, especially when you’re starting out, especially with that first hire. She and I both share experiences working with our very first hires and how that worked, and how it didn’t, and what we learned from that experience. So if you’re someone who’s just starting out, or maybe you’ve been running your business for a little while and you feel like, you know, I want to grow, what direction do I go?

00;02;12;03 – 00;02;31;06
Rebecca Hay
This is feeling her. This is feeling like a lot. You need to hear my story. She talks about how her business really took off after a major disaster hit her hometown of Dallas, Texas. The ice storm that happened a few years ago. She walks through specifically how she came out of that even stronger. And really with a booming business.

00;02;31;06 – 00;02;52;25
Rebecca Hay
I think you’re going to love this episode with Mae. She is raising three kids. Also, she’s a mother and she loves to empower and mentor her team. She loves empowering and giving back to the design industry, so I thought she would be a perfect fit for this podcast. And she is lovely and so savvy guys, enjoy this episode with me!

00;02;52;28 – 00;02;57;18
Rebecca Hay
Mae, welcome to Resilient by Design. I’m excited to have you here and have this conversation.

00;02;57;21 – 00;03;06;04
Mae Reedy
Yes, I’m so excited to be here. Just the name of the podcast itself is deeply ingrained in what we’re trying to do in our company right now. Resilience.

00;03;06;06 – 00;03;18;04
Rebecca Hay
I love that it’s so good. I mean, it’s a topic that I feel like doesn’t get enough credit. So I’m excited to talk about it. Before we dive into all of the things, can you just let our audience know who you are and what you do?

00;03;18;10 – 00;03;45;14
Mae Reedy
Yes, absolutely. So my name is Mae Reedy. I started in design side and I am now also a general contractor. We’re just north of Dallas, Texas. I run a firm that’s design build. There are about 12 of us now, big time ladies. We’re now a seven figure firm with no signs of slowing down. Or. We just had a meeting with our accountant this morning, and we are just, like, a few clicks away from meeting our financial goal for the entire year.

00;03;45;17 – 00;03;47;26
Rebecca Hay
We. Oh, congratulations.

00;03;47;29 – 00;03;52;01
Mae Reedy
We’ve found our sweet spot. We’re sitting in a sweet spot right now, and I’m super thrilled.

00;03;52;04 – 00;04;01;11
Rebecca Hay
Oh, my God, that’s so amazing. I love that you’re also a general contractor. Can you just tell me a little bit about that decision? Were you always a general contractor? What what came first?

00;04;01;13 – 00;04;21;07
Mae Reedy
So my dad’s a builder and a GC. I grew up watching him do this, and I never thought that there would be a day, many, many years down the road where I’d be like, wow, I’m going to be just like my dad. But here we are becoming my dad. So I grew up watching him do things a very certain particular, immaculate and organized way.

00;04;21;07 – 00;04;40;25
Mae Reedy
And I just assume that’s how everybody does business. I thought I would take a very creative route. I went to school for performing arts and art. I went into textile design. I ran a very large Etsy shop for a number of years, while my oldest two were very little. I was into textiles and jewelry and I just having so much fun being creative in that way.

00;04;40;28 – 00;05;01;08
Mae Reedy
I had a dear friend come into my life who was an interior designer who needed a little bit of extra help, caught the bug, became her assistant, became her partner, and then after not very long, her husband was transferred for his job and she was like, meh, you’ve got this. You basically handed over the Rolodex. She’s like, I’m going to start brand new up north.

00;05;01;15 – 00;05;21;21
Mae Reedy
You keep these projects going. So I was essentially handed just like a fresh start, having just apprenticed with her, a beautiful gift, like the most beautiful thing, a friend has ever done for me. So I embarked into a solo design journey at that point and loved it. We had a natural disaster that actually pushed me into GC in Dallas.

00;05;21;21 – 00;05;31;18
Mae Reedy
You may have seen national headlines a handful of years back. We had a huge ice storm. We get them. But this one was like the worst. Our energy grid was not ready for it.

00;05;31;20 – 00;05;33;09
Rebecca Hay
I remember this oh.

00;05;33;12 – 00;05;34;14
Mae Reedy
It was horrific.

00;05;34;14 – 00;05;37;02
Rebecca Hay
You guys had no power forever, right?

00;05;37;05 – 00;05;38;29
Mae Reedy
For days and days.

00;05;38;29 – 00;05;42;24
Rebecca Hay
I remember because I’m up here in Canada, so we’re well-equipped.

00;05;42;26 – 00;05;44;01
Mae Reedy
You know what you’re doing.

00;05;44;03 – 00;05;51;07
Rebecca Hay
And there was houses that didn’t have proper insulation or heating and oh my goodness, I remember that so well. Oh my gosh. Okay.

00;05;51;09 – 00;05;53;02
Mae Reedy
It really was a crisis.

00;05;53;02 – 00;05;55;11
Rebecca Hay
How did that affect you and your business.

00;05;55;14 – 00;06;04;03
Mae Reedy
So I had a handful of previous clients whose beautiful homes we had worked on were now trashed because so many pipes broke, bleeding everywhere.

00;06;04;03 – 00;06;05;14
Rebecca Hay
Of course they froze.

00;06;05;16 – 00;06;29;23
Mae Reedy
Yes. And then current projects that also flooded. And so I jumped into, I guess, like emergency design mode for tons of people. And it was rough. It was scrappy because we couldn’t get anything. Everything was sold out everywhere. And so I’m trying to like, use my connections and get people flooring and get a plumber. And I had all the people and a lot of my clients were trying to find the right contractor.

00;06;29;25 – 00;06;37;01
Mae Reedy
Many of them landed with, let’s say, when disasters happen, a lot of people come out of the woodwork. That should not come out of the woodworks.

00;06;37;03 – 00;06;44;13
Rebecca Hay
The fly by night trades that are like, yeah, I can fix that. I can do it. I see an opportunity. They’re the opportunists. We’ll call them the opportunists.

00;06;44;13 – 00;07;00;06
Mae Reedy
Yes, they struck and I could see in a few months that these projects that this was not going well. Some of these clients that I had been working with for years now, they were like, oh, I wish you were my contractor, my dad. At the same time, I’m calling him all the time, dad, I can’t get this without a conduit.

00;07;00;06 – 00;07;17;08
Mae Reedy
I can’t, you know, all the parts we didn’t have in Dallas. And he’s like, go get your license. Like you need to take over on these jobs. You owe this to your clients. You know what to do. And so I did. And so I took over on a lot of those jobs. And I didn’t look back like we got everybody put back together that way.

00;07;17;08 – 00;07;30;22
Mae Reedy
You know, we scraped through. We got all the things we needed. We got everybody back in their homes. I was changed, I was just like, look what happens when I’m in charge. And everybody was listening to me and I was like, I know what I’m doing, I love.

00;07;30;22 – 00;07;35;00
Rebecca Hay
And I’m like, hello? What? I’m in charge. It’s way better.

00;07;35;02 – 00;08;00;13
Mae Reedy
I love is great. Yes. And the word of mouth that you get from a client that you will literally put their life back together, that’s a client for life. That’s the person who’s going to tell all their neighbors. So, growth just from those, like, magical touch points of truly like healing homes after a crisis like that built our brand, we do not invest the time into marketing or advertising.

00;08;00;16 – 00;08;20;16
Mae Reedy
We use our social media as a portfolio of our work because the word of mouth after something like that. Now, when anyone has a flood, we do a lot of flood jobs. They’re like, I got your girl like karma. We put them back together. So that was the jumpstart into it. It was like a moment of bravery where there was like a fork in the road, and I knew I needed to do what was right for the client.

00;08;20;18 – 00;08;22;26
Mae Reedy
And it turns out it was right for my career, too.

00;08;22;29 – 00;08;46;27
Rebecca Hay
I mean, I think this is amazing because, I mean, for a minute, I want us to talk a little bit about this. Women in construction, because there are not a lot of women in construction. And I can tell you up where I live, up north of the border in Canada, it’s the same. Yeah, it’s mostly men. And I know as designers, sometimes it can be frustrating because sometimes working with contractors, there is a sort of an old men’s club.

00;08;47;01 – 00;09;04;06
Rebecca Hay
And the way I’m dealing with things, and it can be hard for women. What is it like as a female in construction? I imagine you have a lot of sub trades that are not female. Or are they like, are you female only? Like, tell me about what it is like to be a woman in the construction part of the design.

00;09;04;06 – 00;09;22;08
Mae Reedy
Yeah, well, I’m always voting for integrity with my money. So we choose our trades based on, you know, that integrity and follow through with promise. If it’s a female. Amazing. We do have a lot of men that are on our roster as well. And they they fit the bill for us for that integrity to client care. It was hard at first.

00;09;22;08 – 00;09;48;27
Mae Reedy
It really was. It takes a long time to find all of the exact right people to connect with, to know that you’ve got your go to painters, you have your go to plumber, you have your go to electricians. You have to get beat up a little bit to know who doesn’t make the cut. And that’s the most painful part, because I need a sub to show up on my job site, and to know that I know what I’m talking about.

00;09;49;00 – 00;10;05;14
Mae Reedy
You know, if someone tries to mansplain to me why they can use, you know, electrical tape going through a stud on some run, I’m like, no, sir, please reset this like I don’t need you to tell me why you’re breaking the rules. So getting that established as being like, look, I know my code. I know what I’m talking about.

00;10;05;16 – 00;10;19;06
Mae Reedy
It was the hardest one at first, but for the trades, I truly respected that. I knew what I was doing. And then the way I operate is very good for them. You know, that’s taking some time, but we’re in a good place now.

00;10;19;09 – 00;10;21;21
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, I imagine that doesn’t happen overnight.

00;10;21;23 – 00;10;22;20
Mae Reedy
No.

00;10;22;22 – 00;10;52;14
Rebecca Hay
It takes a while, probably for you to find your footing and grounding for anyone listening. Because are there are designers listening that love the construction side. And they’re probably hearing this today and they’re thinking, I wonder if I could do that now? There’s a lot of designers listening who are like, good on you. I have zero desire to do that because it is, I would say, I mean, it’s all relative for depending on who you are, but it was always one of the hardest parts of my job was the construction, managing the trades.

00;10;52;14 – 00;11;12;05
Rebecca Hay
And I was never a GC. I never operated as a GC, but also just working with all the different personalities. It’s hard to control that aspect of the job. It’s a lot easier to control what you and your team are designing than it is all the bleep that can go wrong on a job site. Yes, we’ve presented to the client and the client says we love it.

00;11;12;05 – 00;11;14;25
Rebecca Hay
It looks beautiful, but then maybe we’re not there the.

00;11;14;25 – 00;11;16;07
Mae Reedy
Day that the tiler is.

00;11;16;07 – 00;11;22;25
Rebecca Hay
Tiling and we’re not in them. By the time we get there, they’ve sealed that tight. I mean, this actually, this specific example happened to me.

00;11;23;01 – 00;11;23;13
Mae Reedy

00;11;23;13 – 00;11;42;19
Rebecca Hay
Early in my business, and it was for a good friend, and it was this beautiful slate tile. We were doing a herringbone pattern and then a border, but I wasn’t there before they sealed the tile. And so I didn’t see how crowded the tile, really. I didn’t see that the room was not perfectly square. I mean, sure, I could have caught that, but I did it.

00;11;42;25 – 00;11;57;15
Rebecca Hay
And so they made a choice. They could have called me on the phone and said, hey, do you want us just to eliminate the border? Because it looks kind of funny because the room’s not square, which would have been my preference, but instead they just said she wants a border. So they did the border. And you can imagine what happened.

00;11;57;18 – 00;12;09;09
Rebecca Hay
The whole room looked a little bit funny. And so those types of things happened to designers all the time that I guess you can really mitigate that because you are really in charge of both sides.

00;12;09;11 – 00;12;35;02
Mae Reedy
Yeah, it takes away a lot of stress points. And then again, going back to that communication piece, my teams know when I’m going to trust them to just make a good executive decision. And when they’re like, May’s going to want to see this, you know. And it’s funny too because my trades, they’re not all in-house employees, but I’ve got some teams that have been with me for a lot longer and some that are a little bit newer to us as we’ve expanded what services we need.

00;12;35;05 – 00;12;45;20
Mae Reedy
I’ve got a painter who knows exactly what I want for everything, and I got word a couple weeks ago that he had said to another trade, he’s like, this is when you call me, you know.

00;12;45;23 – 00;12;46;12
Rebecca Hay
That’s cute.

00;12;46;15 – 00;12;48;10
Mae Reedy
Do you want to stick around? You know, like, yeah.

00;12;48;11 – 00;12;54;26
Rebecca Hay
Don’t make the call. You call her and let her make the call. That’s a good. Yeah, that’s a good part. That’s a good trade partner right there.

00;12;54;27 – 00;12;56;04
Mae Reedy
Yeah, it was wonderful.

00;12;56;10 – 00;13;17;02
Rebecca Hay
So and those things take time to develop. And so let’s just talk about this because you’re managing this very robust like seven figure design build firm I imagine you’ve got some structures in place like there needs to be systems and processes and processes like oh my heart flutters a little bit when we talk about it, because I love structure and I love systems.

00;13;17;04 – 00;13;36;20
Rebecca Hay
But I have found that not all designers understand the value of structure and systems because they’re creative. And there’s this. And I felt this way in the beginning. And so I really want to know your take on this, because you did start with the design and then moved into this construction and built this firm. Is this idea that structure will not hinder your creativity.

00;13;36;20 – 00;13;47;02
Rebecca Hay
If anything, in my experience, it allows you space to be more creative. Can we talk about the place for that in business? Like how tight are your systems?

00;13;47;04 – 00;14;07;00
Mae Reedy
Our systems are getting pretty bulletproof. When I hear someone be like, oh, that’s not the next step, or oh, gotta follow the process. I’m like, yes, there’s a document for that. Go find it. Yeah. So the balance between creativity and structure is so much more tightly knitted together than I think one would think. It doesn’t feel super intuitive.

00;14;07;01 – 00;14;29;13
Mae Reedy
It feels like two different characters. You know, you’ve got this person who’s a free spirit and you want to dress crazy and you love the big glasses. You know, like you have this idea of who you are as a designer and you’re just you’re just out there, you know, and then there’s this. I don’t know, geeky bookkeeper, you know, that’s the structure and that’s the systems and processes and, you know, spreadsheets.

00;14;29;13 – 00;14;50;26
Mae Reedy
And you have to have both. Or it’s gonna blow up like you’re not going to get a lot of clients if you don’t have any creativity in your work. They want something fresh. They want something great. You’re not going to be able to finish a project and make a good profit margin and be able to know all of your data points of, like where you’re going if you don’t tune in to that very structured part of you.

00;14;50;28 – 00;15;12;22
Mae Reedy
So earlier on in my career, I was really scared of my company getting any larger. The very first time I entertained the idea of hiring some part time job for grabbing samples. And I was expecting, and I was just like, I just don’t have the energy to like, go get all the things and bring all the things. And a lot of times just working out a lot of mood boards.

00;15;12;22 – 00;15;36;16
Mae Reedy
I wasn’t feeling great. I was like, oh, I got to do this. This is so scary. How can I commit to this? The very first time that I interviewed someone and I was like, okay, here’s what we do. I realized everything lived in my head and that was the problem. Yes, everything was here. And I realized if I’m ever going to train someone to work underneath me or beside me, I have to have everything written down.

00;15;36;21 – 00;15;57;29
Mae Reedy
Everything needs to be an order of operations, an order of steps, so that we can always pick up where the other left up. It creates predictability, getting everything predictable of what happens next. A lot of times you might be the very first interior designer or general contractor that somebody has worked with. And you know what their biggest fear is not knowing what comes next.

00;15;58;05 – 00;16;37;07
Mae Reedy
So if you haven’t figured it out for your business, how can you give that reassurance to a client? So our process has become a huge part of what we put out on our website. Hey here’s the exactly how it’s going to go. And it’s a cute one pager and it’s all pretty in Canva. And then you better believe that there’s like a bajillion pages describing every single step of that process for my team behind the scenes, so that what we’re promising is going to be a really easy process for the client can be an easy process for my junior designers, my senior designers, my project managers, because everybody knows what happens next.

00;16;37;09 – 00;17;00;29
Rebecca Hay
I love that it’s so true. I think that’s interesting. I had a similar experience that I didn’t actually realize until I was listening to you talk just now. Was when I started to hire you. Right. I was an intern at first, and it was just like a part time junior designer. And the frustration that I experienced at the beginning, and I know that a lot of designers face this is, well, how come they don’t just know what to do or why can’t why didn’t they do it right?

00;17;00;29 – 00;17;18;14
Rebecca Hay
Or why didn’t they do it this way? And I would get very frustrated and I was frustrated because I had an idea in my brain of how it should go, but I actually haven’t communicated it to them. I haven’t even communicated it verbally. I was just hoping the hell that they could figure it out, because I was so busy over here that they just do that thing.

00;17;18;14 – 00;17;34;29
Rebecca Hay
And so the frustrations that I kept encountering with my team led me to start putting things on paper. Yeah. And for those listening, if you do want to hire anyone, even if you don’t want to, a lot of designers listening don’t want a scale. They don’t want a seven figure business. They don’t want multiple employees, but they do want some help.

00;17;35;01 – 00;18;01;09
Rebecca Hay
And so if you want some help in your business, you need to have it documented so that these people who are helping you can actually help and then actually feel like they’re doing a good job because otherwise they’re and this is what I think happened with me, I don’t know, we could go back and ask my early employees was I’m pretty sure that they were frustrated as well, and they probably felt that they couldn’t do right by me and that I was really hard to please.

00;18;01;12 – 00;18;16;08
Rebecca Hay
And to be honest, I was, because I had these unrealistic expectations because nothing was laid out on paper. So you need to document what it is you do and starting with what you just said, that client experience, because clients need to know what’s going to come next.

00;18;16;16 – 00;18;21;17
Mae Reedy
That’s so true because expectations that are not communicated are only disappointments.

00;18;21;19 – 00;18;28;02
Rebecca Hay
Ooh, I like that. That’s a good line. Everybody listen to that again. That’s a good one. Say that for the cheap seats in the back. Oh my gosh.

00;18;28;08 – 00;18;36;27
Mae Reedy
If you have not communicated your expectations they immediately become disappointments 100%.

00;18;37;00 – 00;18;39;14
Rebecca Hay
That’s true of anything in life right.

00;18;39;19 – 00;18;49;27
Mae Reedy
Marriage your kids training your dog. Yeah. All of it. Unless you know what it was that I was expecting. If I didn’t tell you, well, then you already felt more all disappointed.

00;18;49;29 – 00;19;09;26
Rebecca Hay
Yeah. Although what if when you you tell your husband to stop leaving his shoes at the front door because you’re going to trip over them, but he still doesn’t do it at that point, I feel like it’s so. It’s no longer like a disappointment from an unrealistic expectation. It’s a three warnings and you’re out of here. You could put your shoes on the back of the house.

00;19;09;26 – 00;19;10;23
Rebecca Hay
That’s long. I just take.

00;19;10;23 – 00;19;12;06
Mae Reedy
The shoes, I just, I.

00;19;12;06 – 00;19;15;00
Rebecca Hay
Don’t that’s a better. Oh, I should do that.

00;19;15;01 – 00;19;16;07
Mae Reedy
You lost your shoes.

00;19;16;10 – 00;19;27;05
Rebecca Hay
Okay. I just want to do something. I want to try that. But I don’t know where they went. Where did you leave them? We digress, but clients need to know what to expect. Yes, yes.

00;19;27;05 – 00;19;49;15
Mae Reedy
And so we have really taken the time to slow that down a little bit. In 2025. I might be getting a little ahead of myself here talking about like how I train and how I mentor. Everybody in my team knows exactly where we’re at. We’re growing. It’s painful. Like we’re we’re making pancakes here. We might be on the first pancake, and this pancake in the pan is just not turning out perfect.

00;19;49;21 – 00;20;12;05
Mae Reedy
You know, we’re getting a few pancakes in. We’re getting better. We’re having a lot of grace with knowing, like, oh, that wasn’t written down somewhere. We’re getting really, really good at just pausing. And everybody on my team has taken ownership of the creation of our standard operating procedures. And so we have this huge Google doc, and it’s got all these sub tabs in it.

00;20;12;11 – 00;20;31;06
Mae Reedy
When we find something that like, oh, this is new territory for us, we have not experienced this. How cool that we’re getting to experience something new. Let’s document this, whoever it is. But I’m stumbling into an awkward moment when I say might be one of my junior designers. It might be procurement. We’re like, okay, we just problem solve this together.

00;20;31;08 – 00;20;50;20
Mae Reedy
Can you please take five minutes to go write this down and add it to our SOPs? It takes five minutes now and not half an hour later or several frustrations or disappointments later. We are just in the habit right now of, well, in the in the middle of a text thread, you know, we’re problem solving something great. Can you add this to the space for me, please?

00;20;50;23 – 00;20;55;22
Mae Reedy
We’re making it as we go and we’re all comfortable with that. Everyone on my team.

00;20;55;25 – 00;21;16;02
Rebecca Hay
I love that it’s living and breathing and I say this all the time. It’s like your process, your breath. It’s a living, breathing thing because you will never be done. And it might be disappointing to hear that if someone’s probably like, oh man, come on, but you’re never done because you’re always experiencing something new, even someone like you who has all this experience doing the entire kit and caboodle, right?

00;21;16;02 – 00;21;39;23
Rebecca Hay
Design through to the construction and you’re still experiencing new situations you haven’t before. I love that. So, guys, if you’re listening right now, if you are driving, just listen and come back to this. But if you’re not driving, stop and write this down. Every time you experience something new and you’re troubleshooting, you figure it out. Do what May says and take five minutes to document it so that the next time you know exactly how you did it, because you might not remember.

00;21;39;29 – 00;21;45;07
Rebecca Hay
And then the next person who comes on to help you isn’t it wasn’t even there for that situation. So they don’t know and love that.

00;21;45;07 – 00;22;05;27
Mae Reedy
Operating procedures are like everything for us as we have grown and expanded, because then when a junior designer has the blessing of stepping up into a more senior role and gets into project management, you can go back and see everything we’ve documented. And as we’re training or it’s fun to share what mistakes lead us to that so they can avoid those mistakes too.

00;22;05;27 – 00;22;11;26
Mae Reedy
And then when the new junior comes on, like we see how and we all share why, we’re not embarrassed to say why.

00;22;11;29 – 00;22;34;07
Rebecca Hay
I love it, I love it. So what would you say to the designer who’s listening right now and who’s like, SOPs, standard operating procedures? What a drag. Like that is not what I came to interior design to do. I don’t think I need that my creativity lies outside of that. Like, what would you say to that designer that’s hearing our conversation right now?

00;22;34;07 – 00;22;48;20
Rebecca Hay
And I know there are many of you listening, and I’m chuckling because some of you are chuckling yourselves and you’re thinking, they’re thinking, this sounds like a lot of work. This is not my zone of genius. Everyone says you need to be in your zone a genius. What do you say to that person?

00;22;48;23 – 00;23;11;12
Mae Reedy
I say, wake up. It’s time to divide how you think about your identity. So I heard this really great podcast and a huge fan of Alex Formosa. I don’t know if anyone else listened to them. He’s great in business, right? He dropped some real good nuggets a few years back talking about two different frames of mind. As a designer, you have to embrace both.

00;23;11;19 – 00;23;32;22
Mae Reedy
You need to figure out how you can unlock as big of a chunk of time for yourself on your calendar. And yes, please use a calendar. Get it all in there. Be structured. Unlock a chunk of time that you can dedicate to getting into a creative flow state, and the only way that you can actually uninterrupted get into that.

00;23;32;22 – 00;23;55;04
Mae Reedy
When you know you need to be inspired to put together a flat, lay fertile and you want the perfect hardware and the client hate screen. So what’s the perfect, you know, like problem solving and getting into that space if you tackled everything else first. So I encourage all of my staff and I do this myself, that we time block really smart.

00;23;55;07 – 00;24;16;26
Mae Reedy
Time blocking is our key. We take care of all of the administrative stuff we did. You reply to your emails? Did you get with this person about that? All the ugly tasks that aren’t super fun. And then you go on D and D for when you need to like just be creative because it is impossible to be a manager and a creative simultaneously.

00;24;17;00 – 00;24;45;01
Mae Reedy
So what times of day do you think you’re just going to get interrupted a lot? You’re doing a lot of administrative, kind of mundane things. Get all your manager stuff done then. Is there a time that you can get away from everybody else and not get interrupted? That is your time to shine. But until you can completely divide the two, you’re not going to allow yourself the ability to lock in on creative in a way that supports growth in your business.

00;24;45;03 – 00;25;09;23
Rebecca Hay
I love it, it’s so true. I remember Layla Hermosa talked about this on her podcast not too long ago. It’s this idea that unfortunately, the ugly tasks, as you refer to them, they end up taking up most of our week if we let them. And that that I think is. So someone listening right now is hearing you and they’re like having like little like probably moments, their brains exploding and they’re like firing on all cylinders.

00;25;09;23 – 00;25;32;15
Rebecca Hay
And they’re thinking, okay, well, this is a really brilliant idea. I’m going to group those like tasks together. But what do you do? How do you control it? For someone who says, okay, I’m going to get that stuff done first, but then that stuff never ends. And so they feel like the end of the week comes in. They’re like, oh my God, I didn’t have any time to finalize that fabric scheme.

00;25;32;18 – 00;25;37;19
Rebecca Hay
So I guess I’m just going to have to go with whatever. What do you say to that designer?

00;25;37;22 – 00;25;41;00
Mae Reedy
Maybe it’s time to hire help.

00;25;41;02 – 00;26;02;23
Mae Reedy
You might need to grow. I would say that I like to be really strict with my time blocking. And once I realize that I have X, I have surpassed. I work a lot of hours a week. I’ll be honest, like we’re in growth mode right now. This is a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I’m not saying everybody should always work 50 to 60 hours a week, but if it’s more than I can do, then I know it’s time for help.

00;26;02;23 – 00;26;26;07
Mae Reedy
I know it either means that I need to delegate some tasks off to my team that are ready to offload some of my things so that I can get into my state, and also really take an assessment of what you’re doing and like, are you being efficient? Are you being ruthless and protective of your time because you might find that you think you’re being inspired by other people on Instagram like, no, it’s not the time for Instagram.

00;26;26;07 – 00;26;47;01
Mae Reedy
You know, be a little bit more ruthless with your time. And, I also like to set timers, and 25 minutes for me is like my bandwidth of like the ugly tasks that I hate. I will set a 25 minute timer to get through all of my emails, and then once that’s done, it’s like, time’s up, because I know I’ve got to go pick fabric, you know?

00;26;47;03 – 00;27;04;10
Mae Reedy
So at the end of the day, I can only do what I can do. And when I surpass that, I’m assessing who else am I going to start handing some things off to you? Also, it might be that you didn’t set good, realistic expectations with who’s expecting these selections from you, because everybody is going to want to rush you.

00;27;04;10 – 00;27;09;21
Mae Reedy
And so maybe you need to reiterate to everybody how long a good designer takes because it’s not going to love.

00;27;09;27 – 00;27;35;24
Rebecca Hay
So yes, that is such a game changer. And I for me, I struggled a lot with that in the beginning because I’m a people pleaser, as many of us know. And yeah, I also it wasn’t even that I, I it’s not like I felt like I was jumping through hoops for clients. I just, I actually thought I could do it in the time I told them, because sometimes we forget we’re quoting our clients like three weeks or four weeks to turnaround a design, but we’re forgetting that we have other things than just doing that.

00;27;35;24 – 00;27;55;25
Rebecca Hay
And so in isolation, yeah, no problem. You can turnaround that design in four weeks. But what if you have two other projects? And what if you have to take your kid to the dentist? And what if you get sick and and and and before you know it, that’s actually an eight week. And now you’re stressed because you’ve over promised to the client and you were scrambling.

00;27;55;25 – 00;28;17;24
Rebecca Hay
I used to scramble all the time. So I love, love, love that realistic expectations. And I also love that you I’m going to say this again is like protecting your boundaries and holding boundaries for your time. Yes. And that is something that I know. Just as human beings, we have a hard time honoring our own boundaries for our time or committing to the goals that we set for ourselves.

00;28;17;24 – 00;28;34;14
Rebecca Hay
Because if there aren’t other people implicated, you’re not really being held accountable by anyone. It’s just you. So you really do need to get strict. And this is something I still work on. Where I also like this Friday is my like no meeting day. It’s just going to be my free day. And before I know what someone’s like, oh hey, are you free for a coffee?

00;28;34;14 – 00;28;44;08
Rebecca Hay
Oh hey, can we just have that quick meeting? And before I know it, I look at my calendar. I’m like, what did I just do to myself? Yeah, we have to be strict with our own time and love that.

00;28;44;10 – 00;29;02;05
Mae Reedy
So speaking of boundaries and all that, I just want to share one nugget that we have put together this year that I think has been the biggest game changer on how our clients are treating us in relation to the timeline and if this helps anyone. Oh my gosh, I would be so thrilled. So we put out a proposal at the beginning of our project.

00;29;02;08 – 00;29;23;16
Mae Reedy
We’ve gotten so meticulously detailed in those proposals so that that first document they ever receive from me has a fully outlined design schedule. Here’s how many weeks we’re going to meet. Here’s our agenda. Here’s week one, week two, week three. We are going to go to two showrooms. No more week four. You have to finalize XYZ at the end.

00;29;23;20 – 00;29;55;19
Mae Reedy
Like really, really, really detailed so that they know what’s coming when. Because again, people are afraid of the unknown. Here’s your full scope and here’s exactly when it’s going to happen. That helps the client, but it’s actually helped me the most because I would have said three weeks. But then if I sit down before I even tell them the price and what we’re going to do, if I map out exactly how long that’s realistically going to take, and then I put it out there into the universe, I’m not going to push myself harder, and they’re not going to push me harder.

00;29;55;19 – 00;30;02;08
Mae Reedy
I love it. So we started mapping out the calendar day one for me, and it’s helped a lot.

00;30;02;11 – 00;30;16;28
Rebecca Hay
It’s true, you know, so much of what we do just holds us accountable. It’s like putting the verbiage in your contract about something that you would be feeling. You would feel uncomfortable talking about. It’s in the contract. You talk about it, you walk your clients through it. So it’s like, okay, well, I guess, yeah, I guess this is what we do.

00;30;16;28 – 00;30;34;16
Rebecca Hay
And so it’s there. You’ve done it for yourself. So I love that you do that. And also for those listening, part of that process, I imagine for you and your team is also looking at your own calendars like we would do this, we’re like, okay, if you map it all out on this Gantt chart or on this, whatever you want to call it.

00;30;34;16 – 00;30;52;06
Rebecca Hay
And yeah, we’ll be ready to present by July 1st, but let’s maybe look at the calendar and see how realistic that is. Like, oh, we’ve got my kids are doing March break. I’m taking two weeks off in March okay. Oh there’s Easter holiday okay. Oh yeah. We’re going to have a reveal. Oh I don’t want to do a presentation the week after a reveal day.

00;30;52;07 – 00;31;03;27
Rebecca Hay
Like we’re going to be tired in that capacity. So it’s making sure that you’re doing that. And I love that you do that before you even give them the proposal. Because they know what they’re signing on for when they say yes.

00;31;03;29 – 00;31;27;27
Mae Reedy
Yes. Last week I feel like we dodged a bullet as we sent that information out. A client did not like the calendar. They wanted it cut in half. And that’s when I said, well, that’s not how we operate. And I can tell you if I would have signed on. And she truly expected that I was going to renovate, 4000 square foot home in two and a half months, start to finish.

00;31;28;00 – 00;31;35;17
Mae Reedy
Oh, crazy. Since I put the calendar out there, that saved us, because that would have been no, no thank you, no thank you.

00;31;35;20 – 00;31;54;12
Rebecca Hay
I would imagine especially for construction timelines. Because what don’t they want it done as fast as possible? Usually it’s inconvenient for them whether or not they’re living there. It’s still inconvenient. Right. And so I love that you do that. Oh so many good nuggets. Okay. We are wrapping up our time together here. But before we move into the nugget, let’s just talk a little bit.

00;31;54;12 – 00;32;06;02
Rebecca Hay
You mentioned mentorship and I want to talk about mindset because I feel very strongly about the power of mindset and how much propels us forward. How is your role as a mentor shaped your own growth as a creative leader?

00;32;06;05 – 00;32;29;05
Mae Reedy
Yeah. Gosh, even you asked me that. I feel like I’m going to get emotional about this question, so bear with me. I’ve been blessed to hire some beautiful souls on my team. My company has my name on it, right? Like that’s not going to be everybody’s cup of tea forever. And I totally get that. The dreams that my girls have for their futures are amazing.

00;32;29;07 – 00;32;37;21
Mae Reedy
Absolutely amazing. Like one of them wants to build her own custom homes. Like she really wants to go some places in construction. Another one of my designers, I mean, like.

00;32;37;24 – 00;32;38;21
Rebecca Hay
She’s so.

00;32;38;21 – 00;33;05;23
Mae Reedy
Incredibly talented. So I’m always looking at them of not just what they’re going to do for the company, but, like, what can I do for them while we have this time together, while we’re in this beautiful space to set them up for their future dreams? Because an employee that knows that I believe in them not just now, but in the future, there’s so much more fully invested in the design because they’re here not to just get a paycheck or just to, like, have fun, because design can be too social.

00;33;05;23 – 00;33;35;28
Mae Reedy
Sometimes they really are digging deep and learning. I’m always asking them, you know, like, what do you want to do next? Where do you want to go? And not from like this, like don’t give me perspective, but like I really want to help launch them into what’s next for them, because someday I’m going to be that crazy, fun old lady at Market Center in her 80s, and I’m going to have a colorful coat, and I’m just going to be rambling around, and I’m going to see them 20 years younger than me in the, like, the height of their career.

00;33;36;05 – 00;33;53;06
Mae Reedy
And it’s going to be a beautiful reunion. Like, we’re going places, but it’s not necessarily all the same place, but I’m trying to support where they’re trying to go because they are really supporting me, where I’m trying to go, wow, very mutually beneficial. I cannot wait to see what they do next.

00;33;53;06 – 00;34;13;04
Rebecca Hay
I have to say, May, that is very refreshing perspective, and I’m hoping the designers listening feel inspired by that. A lot of us have this fear that what if they leave me? Yeah, they’re going to eventually leave you. That’s just how it goes. So why not do exactly as you say, make it enjoyable, help them on their journey.

00;34;13;07 – 00;34;28;13
Rebecca Hay
I love that! What a great way to end the podcast. So phenomenal. Okay, before we wrap up though, what is your last? I feel like you’ve shared so many nuggets it feels a little bit greedy asking for another one, but because this is the format, I have two. What’s your last negative wisdom?

00;34;28;15 – 00;34;49;28
Mae Reedy
My last nugget of wisdom is going to be have the hard talks as soon as possible. It’s the whole eat a frog for breakfast. You know I’m scared of conflict and also the people pleaser. If I can just get the hard things over with really, really soon. If I’ve got to break the bad news, just get it over with and just move on with your day.

00;34;49;28 – 00;35;01;27
Mae Reedy
Because I think sometimes it’s the unfortunate parts of design that can stifle your creativity the most is something’s weighing on you get it and get it over with, because then you can get back to the beautiful.

00;35;01;29 – 00;35;21;00
Rebecca Hay
I love that I’ve never had anyone share that nugget. That’s a good one. Do the hard thing. Eat the frog for breakfast. Get it freaking over worth and move on with your life, I love it. Yeah. Oh, you’ve been such a such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me today and having this conversation. I know that this is going to inspire a lot of designers.

00;35;21;06 – 00;35;27;04
Rebecca Hay
And so for those who are really excited to connect and follow your journey, where can they find and follow you may well.

00;35;27;04 – 00;35;36;03
Mae Reedy
Our favorite is Instagram. We have a lot of fun over there. So on Instagram we are married belts and we’ve also got a really pretty portfolio style website going on at me.

00;35;36;03 – 00;35;55;22
Rebecca Hay
Really design.com I love it and that is spelled mar e r e d y for those who are listening. Thank you so so much. I’m wishing you all the best success. I can’t wait to connect with you when you’re hitting those multiple eight figures, and you can tell us what it takes to get there. I feel like I was just around the corner for you.

00;35;55;26 – 00;36;00;28
Mae Reedy
Awesome. Thank you Rebecca I’ve really loved our time together.

00;36;01;00 – 00;36;20;27
Rebecca Hay
How savvy is Mae? What a great conversation. Truthfully, it really brought me back to the beginnings of my business, especially when we had that conversation about, you know, everything being in your head. And I know if you’re listening to this, you can relate to that. If you’ve been in business a couple of years, you know enough that it’s in there.

00;36;20;27 – 00;36;52;21
Rebecca Hay
And so when someone reaches out to you, you start, but it’s all in your head. And so this idea of getting it on paper, I mean, heck, guys, that’s how I built out my own seven step framework. Power of process was built on this foundation, this idea that you need to start documenting things. And I loved how she shared that every time something new comes their way, that they need to troubleshoot, figure out how to handle, they write it down and that has been the key to my success is stop reinventing.

00;36;52;21 – 00;37;16;00
Rebecca Hay
Once you have an experience, write it down. It brings up a memory of working on a project out of town. And we did several bathrooms, and I remember being in the bathroom with the contractor. We were reframing the shower. We’re taking out a tub shower combo. We’re doing a standalone shower and my drawings did not reflect that. We needed shower jambs or the height of the knee wall or the threshold, like so many things were missing.

00;37;16;00 – 00;37;34;13
Rebecca Hay
And I remember in that moment, turning to my team member and saying, we need to make a list so that the next time anyone in our firm and at this time, it was just her and I, but I knew that eventually there’d be somebody else. So that we never forget to add this detail to it. Elevation. And that’s how my checklists were born.

00;37;34;19 – 00;37;54;09
Rebecca Hay
We just started to create. When you’re designing a bathroom, this is a checklist. These are the checklists that I give to designers inside my programs, because it’s what I wish I had. And May reminded me that that has been the key to a lot of my success is when shit hits the fan, write it down and document it so that it doesn’t happen again.

00;37;54;11 – 00;38;16;07
Rebecca Hay
I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Go give her a follow. She’s really doing amazing work and I can’t wait to watch her business grow and have her back in the future to see where she’s at. Thank you for listening. As always. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I’ll see you soon.