I Changed My Business Model. Here’s What I Got Wrong.

Welcome to Season 8 of Resilient by Design!

If you’ve been running your interior design business for a few years, there’s a good chance it looks very different from the business you originally imagined.

More clients. More responsibility. More systems. Maybe a team. More revenue to manage.

And somehow, in the middle of building a “real” business, you can find yourself spending less and less time doing the work that made you want to become an interior designer in the first place.

I’ve been feeling some of that too.

Over the past year, I made some major changes in my own business. I stepped away from running design projects, changed my program model, retired an offer I was known for, and tried to build something that I thought would be more sustainable.

Some of those decisions worked.

Others taught me a lot about what doesn’t work for me.

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what I got wrong, what this season of business has taught me, and why realizing that something isn’t working does not mean you failed.

Because this happens in interior design businesses all the time.

You create a service because you think clients want it. You hire someone and realize it wasn’t the right fit. You build a process that becomes too complicated. You say yes to too many types of projects. You become the bottleneck. Or you spend so much time managing invoices, clients, schedules, and your team that the creative side of design barely gets any of you anymore.

That doesn’t mean you built your business wrong.

It means you have information you didn’t have before.

The question is: What are you going to do with it?

In this episode, I’m sharing what I’ve learned about changing direction, building a business around your strengths, and creating the systems that actually give you more freedom to do the work you love.

In this episode, we’re talking about:

What taking a summer break helped me recognize about my business
Why interior design business owners can lose touch with the work that originally excited them
The business model change I made and what I now believe I got wrong
Why trying something that doesn’t work isn’t the same as failing
What happens when you build for scale but lose sight of how you actually want to work
How being the bottleneck contributes to overwhelm in your design business
Why strong processes and systems should create more creative freedom
The importance of knowing which parts of your business actually energize you
What I’m changing in my business moving forward
What you can expect from Season 8 of Resilient by Design

If you’re an interior designer who has been feeling overwhelmed, stuck, burnt out, or simply disconnected from your business lately, I want you to use this episode as an opportunity to look at what you’ve built.

What still works?

What doesn’t?

And what have you kept doing simply because you thought that was how a successful design business was supposed to operate?

You don’t necessarily need to burn it all down and start again.

Sometimes you need to keep what’s working, change what isn’t, and build the next version of your business with a little more intention.

Episode Resources:

Learn more about the Consultations that Convert Bootcamp: https://rebeccahay.com/bootcamp
Join the Power of Process Waitlist

This episode is sponsored by Programa.

Programa is project management software built specifically for interior designers. It’s designed to save you hours every week and reduce the errors that come from managing projects across scattered documents and systems.

Use code RBD25 for 25% off annual Programa plans. Click to learn more.

August 18, 2026

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I Changed My Business Model. Here’s What I Got Wrong.

Welcome to Season 8 of Resilient by Design!

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