In this rebroadcast, Rebecca dives into the transformative power of checklists in an interior design business. She highlights three essential types of checklists that every designer should implement.
Through personal stories and practical tips, Rebecca illustrates how these checklists can streamline operations, improve team efficiency, and enhance client satisfaction. Whether you’re looking to scale your business, refine your processes, or simply stay organized, this episode offers valuable insights on how checklists can be a game-changer in your design practice. Tune in to learn how to make checklists work for you!
This episode is going to help you stop feeling like you are mired in chaos and forever destined to wing it on your projects.
I explain how to create a dynamic checklist that documents your process, establishes a standard operating procedure for your business, and helps with delegation, organization, and onboarding. I share some previous experiences that led me to depend on a checklist and the final, crucial tip that ensures its success.
Episode Highlights:
- Rebecca shares three key types of checklists for your interior design business.
- The distinction between checklists and to-do lists, emphasizes the importance of repeatable processes.
- Rebecca discusses her Power of Process course, which includes access to her templates and checklists.
Episode Resources:
Get my Consultation Checklist here Get my Reveal Day Kit here
Learn more about Power of Process
Read the Full Transcript ⬇️
Rebecca: Hey, hey, hey! It’s Rebecca, and you’re listening to Resilient by Design. Today, I am bringing back a great episode all about checklists. I’m going to walk you through the checklist that I’ve developed and used in my interior design firm, which has really helped move the needle, elevate my professionalism, and allow us to deliver better results for our clients.
I strongly believe that once you establish a process, you need systems in your business to ensure you follow the steps that you’ve created. This is something I dive into in-depth inside Power of Process. In fact, I share the checklist that I use in my business within the course. But for those of you who are ready to start creating some repeatable systems, this episode is for you.
I share the exact checklists that are the most impactful in my business. This episode originally aired in September, and we’re bringing it back because I think it’s a really good one. Enjoy!
Rebecca: Hey, hey, hey! It’s Rebecca, and you’re listening to Resilient by Design. Today, I’m diving into all things checklist. You guys know I love organization, and I’m all about systems and processes. I have to say that checklists have been a game-changer in my business. Specifically, they have kept me on task and following my process.
They’ve also helped me to hire and grow a team. When you have a checklist that serves as your SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), it makes everything more efficient. There are multiple checklists and different types of checklists that you can have in a design business. Today, I want to talk about the three most important types of checklists that you need to run your interior design business.
So let’s get to it! I’m not going to dangle the carrot. I’ll tell you right off the bat what the three are, and then I’ll walk you through each one in more detail. You guys already know that I follow a seven-step process—I have for a few years now—and that process was truly the game-changer in my business.
The reality is, I knew how to design, right? I had a good eye for design. If you can relate to this, then you’re listening to the right episode because this is going to seriously help you in your business. But have you ever had that frustrated feeling where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I know what I’m doing. I know how to design. I know how to pick paint colors. I’m definitely talented. I’ve got a good eye, right?” Maybe you even went to design school, but you’re unsure of the best way to deliver results for your clients, and you feel chaotic every day. You probably feel like you’re winging it sometimes because you were never taught the ins and outs of running a design business. And you’re likely wishing that someone could just give you a blueprint because you know there’s got to be a better way. This was me for so many years.
I remember working for another designer and just being in his studio. I have this visual—I’m closing my eyes right now—remembering this time when I was standing at this big table for sourcing and laying everything out, feeling like I was pulled in multiple directions. I didn’t know what to do next. I remember just thinking, “What the heck? How are other people doing this? There’s got to be another freaking way. There’s got to be a better way because I don’t have one. I’m just winging it and grabbing fabrics, thinking on the spot about what to do next.”
When I went out on my own and started to build out a process and create checklists, I realized that was the missing piece of the puzzle. I needed that blueprint. Today, I’m not going to give you the whole blueprint because that’s a whole course—Power of Process—but I am going to give you those tangible, specific checklists that have made a big difference for me in my business so that you can start thinking about creating some for yourself.
Here are the three checklists that I believe are the most important to have in your interior design business:
- Internal Design Process
- Site Visit Checklists (for trade day, kickoff meetings, client walkthroughs)
- Design Checklists
I want to make the distinction between a checklist and a to-do list. People might go to a site with a checklist they’ve created, like, “Here’s what I need to do on site.” That’s really important to do because each project is unique, but that is not the same thing as a checklist. A checklist includes tasks you do repeatedly with every project, regardless of specifics. For example, when you do a review of the plumbing rough-in, you’re always going to measure certain things. You have your checklist, and then the to-do list will be something specific to that project. The checklist is like the baseline. You want to have your checklist that you can just print or pull up on your iPad or phone so that you have it, and then you want to supplement that with anything project-specific.
Let me walk through each of these because I know there are two design types, and that sounds confusing. Let’s start with number one: Internal Design Process. The internal design process is different from the design checklist, which I’ll get to in a minute. The design checklist is about creating the actual design. Those will come easily if you’re already skilled, especially if you have experience or went to school. That’s why I save that for the end.
Once you establish a process, you have certain steps to follow—from one to seven steps in my case, but you could have 15, 10, five, three, whatever you want for the service offering you have. Once you have a process, you need to document it so that you remember every step that needs to happen inside each step of your process. We have checklists that relate to each step in our process. I’ve already shared one of those for free with all of you. If you haven’t picked it up already, you can get it—it’s my consultation checklist. You can get it at rebeccahay.com/consultation. That is a great example of an internal design process checklist.
When you have a checklist that says, “Here’s what you need to do to prepare for this step, here’s what you need to do during that step, and here’s what you need to do once it’s complete,” that’s your standard operating procedure. That’s what I talk about in Power of Process. This is how businesses are run. This is how big companies are profitable because they’re repeating the same steps over and over again with every client. They’re not reinventing the wheel. You need an internal design process. Ours are literally checklists. There’s a checklist for how to prepare for a consultation, what to do and say during the consultation, and what to do after the consultation. We have checklists like that for each step in our process.
That is the first checklist that I believe is the most powerful. It’s not something your client sees. It is what keeps you organized internally and allows you to hire someone else to help you. How many times have you wanted to hire someone, or maybe you’ve hired somebody, but the whole time you’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, I should just do it myself. I’ll just do it faster.” I still do that sometimes, even almost 10 years later running my design business. There are times when I think, “You know what? I’ll just do it because it feels like it’s in my head.” But that’s not how you run a business. You have to delegate, and you have to understand that if someone does the job at 80% of how you would do it, that’s a win. If you have a checklist, you can give that to your junior designer or design assistant and say, “Can you help me prepare for the consultation? Here’s the checklist. Can you make sure everything is in the bag? Can you print all the things on this list? Can you go through the checklist? And if there’s something you don’t know how to do, just ask.”
It’s a game-changer for onboarding employees, freelancers, and independent contractors. Have internal design checklists. If you’re like, “Oh my gosh, yes, I need these things, but I don’t have the time to do it or the desire,” let’s be honest—it’s very time-consuming, and you’ve got a lot going on. You can also buy them. If you take Power of Process, there’s actually an online shop—a template shop where I share and sell all my checklists. I share my design services agreement, my contract, Canva templates for presentations, everything. I sell it, but it’s only accessible to the Power of Process students. That’s why I don’t talk about it much publicly because it’s not available to the public. I did that because I felt strongly that you can download a template or checklist from someone’s website, but if you don’t have the context for how to best use it, it’s not going to work for you. For me, I want my students to get results. I want designers to succeed in implementing processes in their business. I want my students to make money from their business. That’s why the shop is only available to Power of Process students. Will I change that down the road? Maybe. Possibly. It’s certainly not a get-rich-quick scheme by limiting who can purchase those things, but I really care about the results.
So, if you want processes and checklists, you’re welcome to buy mine once you sign up for Power of Process. But that is the first type of checklist that I think is non-negotiable in your interior design business.
The second type of checklist is for Site Visits. These might be part of your process within certain steps, but they are for things like trade day, a kickoff meeting, an electrical walkthrough, or a plumbing rough-in—times when you need to go to the site, whether for construction, decorating, or even just to meet a client, like during a consultation, for example. You need a checklist to make sure you don’t forget anything.
It’s funny because we just had a situation in our studio where my senior designer—I’m really not going to the site much anymore because I’ve become so hands-off thanks to my strong, great team—realized that no photos had been taken at the site. Typically, I’m posting pictures on Instagram, like, “I’m not there, but my team’s there, and look at the progress.” But I’ve literally had no progress pictures for this one project. I spoke to my designer, and she was like, “Oh, I never think to take pictures.” And I realized, it’s not on the checklist. I just inherently think to take pictures because I’m on Instagram, and I’ve always been a bit of a photo enthusiast. But it doesn’t come naturally to her. A simple thing like “Take photos of progress and upload them to the client Google Drive” needed to be added to our site visit checklist.
That also goes to show that once you create a checklist or take someone else’s and make it your own, it will change. It will live and breathe, just like your process and your business. You’ll want to add things as you learn. In a minute, I’ll share an example with the design checklist we’ve had to tweak over time, but you’ll constantly be adding to it. Make sure you have one to start with.
Site visits are important so that when you go to the site, you’re making sure you ask all the right questions and look at all the right things. Sometimes what happens is we go to the site, and we kind of get bombarded, right? Trades have questions, you want to check something out, an issue pops up, and before you know it, you’ve left the house without taking photos or measuring the height of that wall sconce or whatever it was you needed to do.
The third type of checklist you need for your interior design business is Design Checklists. I saved these for last because they are probably the most straightforward to understand and create, but they’re also the number one thing people forget to do. I say that because I had all these process checklists, checklists for site visits, steps to follow, but when it came to actually designing, I took for granted my knowledge on how to design a kitchen and the things I needed to think about. But when I had a junior designer or even an intern come in, they didn’t have the same life experience. What you’re taught in school is great, but as you learn, you need to add to that knowledge. So, we started creating design checklists so that a junior designer could have it in front of them while working in AutoCAD or while sourcing, ensuring they didn’t forget anything.
Here’s a story. We were working on a project in Caledon, outside of Toronto, for a very high-profile client. We weren’t able to shoot it or talk about it, but it was a great project. It’s like it never happened. But there were several bathrooms, and early on in my business, we were on-site, standing there, and the contractor said, “Your drawings didn’t indicate a threshold here for the shower glass on the half wall.” I was like, “Oh yeah, let me look at the drawings my assistant did. Okay, they’re pretty basic.” Then they said, “You didn’t pick the material you want us to use for the shower threshold and the niche. You just sort of drew the niche.” These were rookie mistakes, so anyone more senior listening might roll their eyes, but these are mistakes we made.
I remember leaving, walking out of that house, and turning to my assistant, saying, “We need to create a checklist. We need to create a checklist of all the things you need to specify when designing a bathroom. Then we need to create one for when you design a kitchen, and then one for CAD drawings. What’s on an elevation? Let’s create a checklist for our floor plans in CAD. What’s on the floor plans? What information do we include?” I had another situation where I was working for a big builder on a sales center outside of Toronto. I had done sales centers before, but my CAD drawings had conflicting information. On one page, I think it was the elevation, it had “stain wood natural stain” or something like that. But on another part of the drawing, it actually gave the product I wanted. Well, didn’t the builder go ahead and stain the beams orange? I came to see it and was like, “What the heck? This is absolutely not the design intent. This is hideous.” They said, “Well, your drawing said use a natural stain.” And then they showed me the stain they used, which was a different brand. The color was called “natural,” but there was nothing natural about this orange ceiling.
These examples pertain to design checklists. One could be a sourcing checklist for a kitchen, another could be for AutoCAD or drawings, or millwork design, or whatever type of work your studio does. If you start to build out those checklists and put the basics on there, it feels good to check things off. When I’m designing a bathroom, I check off the faucet, vanity, tile, etc. We also put line items in our design checklist that are for consideration because not every bathroom is the same. You might want to include areas that are optional, like tile half-wall, chair rail, baseboard—is it going to be stone, wood, or MDF? These are the types of things that, if you put them on a checklist, you’ll never forget to source, specify, or design it again.
So, those are the three types of checklists that I believe are really beneficial in your design firm:
- Internal Design Process Checklists
- Checklists for Site Visits
- Design Checklists
If you don’t have any of these, don’t sweat it. These take time, but start with one of them. I do believe that the internal design process checklist is really powerful because it helps you grow, scale, and have more time. You’re not constantly thinking, “What have I missed? What else do I need to do for that project?” Once you start getting checklists, you could hole-punch them, put them into a cute little binder, and keep them in your office. I love paper copies of things. I know it’s not super eco-friendly, but when I have something on paper, I’m more likely to achieve it, follow it, and look at it. The computer is great, but I like to close my tabs and stay organized. Then I forget it even exists.
My final tip: Checklists are only as good as the people who follow them. I’ll repeat that: Checklists are only as good or useful as the people who follow them. Meaning, you could have SOPs, systems, checklists, but if you’re not following them or using them, you may as well not have them at all. This is why I like to print things, put them on a bulletin board, pin them up, and pull them out. As you start to build out these systems and checklists, and if you take Power of Process and get all of the checklists, what I encourage you to do is print them or keep them in a Google Drive folder. But if you have someone working with you, you have to remind them over and over again to pull them out and look at them because just having them doesn’t mean your employee will use them regularly. It has to become a habit. So what I do is every time we have a design meeting—once a week for different projects—I sit down for the meeting and say, “Where’s the checklist? I don’t want to start the meeting until we have it. Where are we at? I want to make sure we don’t miss reviewing any important information.”
There you have it—a little glimpse into how I run my business. If you’re someone who has been dying for a blueprint or wants to understand how other designers run their businesses, then you’re going to love Power of Process. It is an incredible community of designers who are typically one to two years into their business. That said, we have amazing designers who’ve been in the business for 20+ years, and they are in our community, giving back, sharing, and learning because things change—the way business is run has changed. It’s a dynamic group of individuals. The alumni come back every year because you get lifetime access. You can learn from them, learn from me, get access to that online shop I mentioned, and really hone in on what it looks like to run a successful design business.
Okay, guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Don’t forget to check out my free checklist available at rebeccahay.com/consultation and rebeccahay.com/reveal. Both of those checklists are an excellent start. Good luck, and I’ll see you soon.
