Discussing your interior design business with someone else in the same boat is invaluable!
Your partner, friend, or even neighbour is great for talking about your day-to-day, but when it comes to talking about the ins and outs of your interior design business and the hurdles you’re facing, there’s no one better than a like-minded designer who has struggled through the exact same thing!
This is the beauty of being a Designer’s Room member: an intimate group of professionals who show up authentically ready to support, encourage, and grow together, hours of exclusive content overflowing with insider knowledge, searchable podcast archives, and much much more (including our upcoming Secrets Showcase!).
In this episode, I go over just a few of the perks of membership so if any grab your interest, head over to Designer’s Room to sign up and access all of this with the click of a button.
See you there!
Read the Full Transcript ⬇️
Hey, hey, hey, it’s Rebecca, and you’re listening to Resilient by Design.
Today I’m doing something a little bit different, and I’m going to give you a little sneak insider’s perspective. Inside some of the secrets that have been shared. In Designer’s Room, this is something a little bit different. And if you guys are listening on Spotify or iTunes or anywhere you listen to your podcasts and you can’t see the video, you might want to hop on over to YouTube and watch this one in video format because I am going to be sharing my screen.
I don’t typically do this, but I really thought that this would be an effective way to really show you what you’re missing. If you’re not inside Designer’s Room and actually give you a little bit of help. So. If you want to hop on over to YouTube after you’ve listened to this to get a little bit more visual, by all means, if you’re on YouTube, welcome!
Here we are and here we go. Here’s what I want to do today. I wanted to really give everyone an inside view, inside Designer’s Room, because it’s relatively new. We only launched it today. In January of 2024, previously, it was a super top secret community that was really only available to the graduates of power of process.
When I brought it forward to the public in January, it was met with a phenomenal response. I know that this is the community that designers are craving and wanting. You know, it’s funny. I was listening to a podcast yesterday. I think it was Mel Robbins and she was talking about the power of asking questions or advice from people who are doing or trying to do the same thing as you, as opposed to asking questions or advice from family, friends, people who are not in it.
They aren’t trying to grow a design firm. They are not entrepreneurs. And so they don’t have all the information to properly advise you. And so All of that really, really brought it home for me and reminded me the power of a community of like minded career driven professionals. And I know that the, some of the best advice that I have received over the years of running a business has been either from other interior designers.
Other coaches or other business owners and leaders who are also trying to grow a business struggling with hiring and firing, struggling with marketing. Where should I show up? What should I do? Where should I invest? What’s a, what, what is your niche? Like all of those conversations are hard to have with someone who.
Isn’t in it, isn’t in the daily grind of it. And yes, it’s nice to be able to share with your partner as I do, but there is something about being in a space that feels safe to talk about clients, to talk about vendors and like, let’s be honest, there’s a lot of bleep that we can be talking about because this is a very intricate and complicated business that we run.
And so Designer’s Room. And when I heard that podcast, I think it was yesterday, it really got me thinking about Designer’s Room. And I’m like, you know what? I feel like I need to do a PSA public service announcement and I need to record an episode where I share really more specifically in this tangible form.
What is Designer’s Room? Because we have a Secrets Showcase coming up. I’ve never done this before. I’m really excited. It’s going to be the event. of the season and it is inside Designer’s Room. We are hosting a Secrets Showcase this June. So a secret showcase is where you come together all on zoom and you are put into breakout rooms with other designers.
Everyone is asked to bring some secret. Something that they have used that has really been effective in their business to share with the other designers, we’re going to be sharing between each other in the breakout rooms and then sharing as a group, it’s going to be an incredible space for you to take a ton of wisdom and so many nuggets and As a member of Designer’s Room, not only do you get access to the Secrets Showcase, but you get access to everything else.
And so ahead of this big event, in addition to that incredible event, which will be amazing and not to be missed. So you should join us inside Designer’s Room, but I wanted to show you what else you get when you join us in community. So I’m going to go ahead. And if you’re watching on YouTube you’ll see that I’m sharing my screens.
Just give me one, a hot second here. What I’m sharing with you is a portal. So if you’re just listening on audio, what I’m telling you. I think it’s a portal. It’s a secret private place. Essentially it’s like a website where you have to log in and you only get that login if you are a member in good standing of the group.
So if you just register to join us inside this portal is this incredible hub. It’s hosted on this brand new platform. That is AI. So you can literally search for anything. And if there was a training or a podcast episode or anything that has that content on this site, in this portal, it will pop up. And I’ll show you guys an example of that in a minute here on the screen.
And I’ll verbally walk you guys through it. But essentially, when you land in this portal, you get to scroll down and there is a whole onboarding system to kind of give you a tour of how it all works. But the biggest, coolest things are that the most recent calls that we have. So we have two zoom coaching calls a month.
One is either a workshop with a guest. We have some incredible guests. So don’t get there in a minute, or it’s teaching by Rebecca yours. Truly. I share my screen. I show my PNLs. I literally will show you inside my business. Like never before. I do not share this much personal data publicly on a podcast, and I’m sure you guys can understand why.
I don’t want to open myself up, myself up to any badness. Is that even a word? You know what I mean? But inside designers, I feel safe to share. And that’s. That’s the atmosphere that I encourage the other members to also share. We do not only have a portal, there’s also a Facebook group, but inside the portal there are access to recent calls.
Okay, so whatever. Who cares about the layout, right? You want to know what’s in it for you. First of all, you can search. So I mentioned that you can type in anything and search this podcast that you are listening to right now is actually all uploaded in audio form to the portal. So if you wanted to search this podcast, like Oh my gosh, I remember that Rebecca had a guest talking about sales strategies.
I wish I could remember her name. I’d love to re listen to that. All you need to do is type in sales or sales strategies or marketing tips or whatever it is you’re looking for. And my portal will analyze all of that. All of the audios, all those transcripts, and it is going to give you the specific episodes and the timestamps in those podcast episodes of where I talked about that thing.
So the more specific you can get, the better, more tailored that will be. And it’ll pop up and you’ll say, Oh, right. It was the sales maven. I’m going to go listen to that episode. It was so good. It also searches all the coaching calls for the past three years. I have been showing up twice a month inside this group.
Every single call that has been. Delivered here inside Designer’s Room is open to you. And this is what I want to share with you right now. So you know exactly what type of secret information that you are getting when you join us. So inside your coaching call library, there’s 46 hours of content. I’m looking at it right now.
There’s 40 medias, there’s 40 videos. I don’t expect you to dive in and watch it all. It’s kind of like an on demand. It would be like. If you wanted to find a Google for Rebecca, Hey, like, I wish I could just tap into Rebecca’s brain. This is where you would do it. And this is better than going to chat GPT because this is actually searching private trainings that the internet doesn’t have access to.
You can’t find this on Google. This is not searchable. So. I’m going to go through and share with you some of the top secret information that I have shared inside this group that if you join us, you also will get access to.
Last year, I did a training with my husband, Kris, who is a marketing genius. He and I did a deep dive into using AI. He shared his screen and showed exactly how you can use chat GPT, how you can connect it with other platforms to create 3d realistic renderings. It is a phenomenal resource. Definitely go watch that one.
If you join us, I’ve also shared specifically my PNL. I mentioned this before, so I have shared specifically what my expenses were in a year. And I think that one was basically a training. It’s called uncover what it costs to run your business. And I walk designers through every Visually, I shared with them from one of my years in business, all the expenses.
I showed them the different categories that I use for expenses. They saw the actual number and then I showed them how you can use that information to forecast future sales. That is information that is gold that I wish I had had when I started my business. That is yours for the taking inside Designer’s Room.
I also walk you through specifics of brand partnerships. In here, one of the secrets that I do share with the Designer’s Room members is how I got the brand partnerships that I got over the years, which ones I thought were the most valuable. What was the wording in one of my contracts? I screen share a contract with a big brand.
I share it here inside the portal. And I only do this because I know it is a safe space. And I know that the Designer’s Room members. In Designer’s Room are supportive. They are trusting and I trust them, but I share exactly the things that were included in that contract, how it went, would I do it again?
And I give you guys tips because a lot of designers are looking, should I do affiliate? Should I reach out to a brand? How do I get someone to pay me to speak on stage? How do I get free product for my kitchen run out? I share all of that. I’m going to talk about all of my experience in that one particular call.
Client presentations. I walk you guys. Also, one of the secrets I like to share in here is a client presentation. Like specifically, what do I do each step of the way? You know, I talk about it on social media a lot. I talk about it on Instagram. I talk about it here on the podcast and I’ve definitely done episodes on it, but if you really want to dissect and see what’s going on.
What has worked and what hasn’t, this is where I share that information. I recently shared in one of our hot seat Q and A’s. We have these like live hot seat Q and A calls every month that I do room totals for clients. I don’t do line item pricing, but this one client who’s a repeat client came to me asking specifically for me to break it into line items.
And I confessed to the members, like, this is what was just asked of me. And I’m currently, cause I’m always sharing what’s going on in real time. I’m currently trying to figure out, should I do it? And here’s why I might do it. Here’s why I won’t do it. And then I update everyone and I’m not going to spoil it for you, but I share what exactly I decided to do.
Billing. I have shared inside here exactly my billing structure, how I do it, how I collect money from clients. Like one of the secrets that I love is that other designers will come in and they share exactly how they bill. And that’s the beauty of the Facebook group, actually. Like the trainings are amazing.
You can watch the coaching calls and there’s tons of screen sharing and face photos and I show you images of what I, of how I do things like like a construction binder, like what goes into a construction binder. What is really neat is the Facebook group, because that is where everyone is sharing.
They are sharing what has worked for them. They’re sharing what specifically they’ve charged. They’re sharing how they calculate their design fees. Like it is a very. Safe space. If you’re curious what other designers are doing across North America, we have a couple European members, but mostly it’s across North America.
Then you can really get a clear sense. Every quarter or so. We also do a community share and those are very private sessions that only members, obviously only members would any of these, but those are ones that I really hold in the strictest of confidence. And I, I do say if you’re going to attend a community sharing to have your camera on because we want to know that the person is Isis on the other end, right?
And you’re not like broadcasting this to whoever, and that is where people will come and they will share their own internal documents. One of the really cool community shares that we had in the last year or so was someone shared their investment guide. They’re working with us document and multiple designers shared those.
And so we could see what did they include and why does it work? And what have they changed? And the members come forward and they share with each other visually what it is that they’re doing. I have a couple more secrets that you can learn if you join us. And one of them was like a really vulnerable moment.
I have to say that was with a guest and I’m not going to give away who the guest was. You can go find out inside Designer’s Room, but a very highly respected designer in Toronto. She was a guest inside Designer’s Room and she shared a very specific situation where she was. sued by a client over an item of furniture and she shared with us the process and how she’s changed her contract now as a result and what she did that allowed that to happen and what she’s learning from it and how she’s moving forward and doing things differently.
It’s vulnerable moments like that that are what make Designer’s Room so special because you’re not finding that vulnerability on the internet. You just aren’t. The internet is a lot of like, Ooh, look at me, right? It’s a lot of faking it till we make it. It’s a lot of pretending like we’ve got it all together.
I mean, I know I’ve been there, right? So. So this is just a snippet of the 46 hours of training inside our coaching call. And that doesn’t even include, and I want to scroll back here to the hot seats. So every month we also have a hot seat Q and a like guys, I don’t know any other community that has this much access to the founder, AKA me, and this much of a live component.
The hot seat Q and a’s. Are literally that you submit your questions. If you have a burning issue, maybe it’s something with a client or with a contractor and you really need help. You don’t know how to get out of a sticky situation. Maybe the client wants to change something after they’ve signed an initial agreement.
Maybe they’re struggling with pricing their service. Maybe they’re in a situation where the client wants to go rogue and purchase the items without them. Like no question is off limits. There’s literally 39 videos, 41 hours. This is an addition to the other videos. With all of the hot seat Q and A’s, you’re going to see everyone’s questions.
A hot seat means that you get to be in the hot seat. So it’s you and me on zoom and you share what’s going on. You ask your question and I give you feedback and coaching, and then other designers in the zoom can chime in and give you their perspective, maybe their experience, we usually do two to three hot seats per.
Zoom and then we also open it up to a Q& A and oftentimes it becomes like one big discussion and it’s a small intimate group like there are not hundreds of designers inside Designer’s Room. This is early days of Designer’s Room so now is the time to come in and soak up all that information. As I’m scrolling down and I’m looking at all these hot seat Q& A’s I’m like remembering how many secrets were shared.
Inside these sessions, things that people would not typically want to share publicly. And in fact, I’ve had designers say to me like, Ooh, I was so vulnerable. Like, do you think it’s okay that, that that’s there for other designers to see? And I said, yes, like you’re showing up authentically and you’re sharing the struggles in your business and we’re watching you grow and solve for these problems.
And it really is such an incredible thing. I could go on and on. I walk you through exactly how I use project management in my business. Ahsan, I walk you through exactly how I’ve used design docs. I walk you through so many things that it’s totally going to blow your mind. But the Facebook group, when you do decide to join us, you’re going to love being able to show up in the group.
I check in every single day, not on the weekend, but I check in every single day, Monday to Friday, Answer people’s questions. Like if you want unlimited access to me, yours truly, your podcast host, Rebecca, Hey, get inside the room, get in the room, get in the room. June is going to be the perfect time for you to join us.
It’s halfway through the year, right? January, February, March, April, May, June mid year check in. There’s a whole session inside Designer’s Room on a mid year check in. That is when actually we’re doing our Secrets Showcase. So come on in. It is specifically called a Secrets Showcase for a reason. We’re going to get some really juicy shares inside that zoom.
That secret showcase is happening on June 12th, 2024. If you’re listening to this in real time, and if you’re listening to this after the fact, the great thing is you can still join Designer’s Room and go watch the Secrets Showcase because everything lives in the portal forever, basically. And so you get lifetime access.
As long as you are a member in good standing, you get access to all the trainings. You can watch the replays. You can watch them in, you can watch them in real time and show up live, or you can watch the replay after the fact in the portal. You can search the content. You can search at what point in that video did someone talk about pricing?
Did someone talk about budget? Did someone talk about marketing? Did someone talk about LinkedIn? Like you name it, high point. You can search it. And I actually recently had Kim, who’s a designer’s remember, send me a DM and say, Oh my gosh, Rebecca, I just have to say, thank you so much. I can’t stop saying how great the searching feature is in Designer’s Room.
And I actually don’t think enough people are using it. So that’s why I wanted to do this to highlight there’s information at your fingertips. It’s in here before I end today. Sorry, before I, before I, before I end, I’m going to tell you that. There’s a private podcast. So if you guys like listening to my voice in your ear here, you can literally download inside the portal.
You can download the private podcast, which is Designer’s Room, and you can listen to the replays of all of the trainings of all of the hot seats on the go in the car, wherever you listen to your podcast. It’s a new feature. This is literally a brand new website that we launched this year. It’s amazing if I do say so myself.
And then the last thing that I wanted to say. It sucks running a business by yourself. It just sucks. Like I don’t, there is no way around it. There’s days where it feels so freeing because you get to make the decisions, but more often than not, it feels like pressure that I get to make the decisions. It feels lonely, constantly questioning: am I making the right decision?
What are other people doing? Do you think I should do this? And the reality is, is when you run an interior design business, You need answers right now. Like when a situation happens onsite with a contractor, you can’t wait until the next time you get together with your girlfriends or the next time you go to an industry event, like you want answers, you need help right away.
And that’s why I designed. Oh, I designed, never thought of designing it. I designed Designer’s Room, but that’s why it was created so that you can get the answers that you need in real time, like in real freaking time. Like you can literally hop onto the Facebook group from your car, not while you’re driving and type in or send a voice memo or record yourself in the car, like crying as many designers have saying, I don’t even know what to do.
I am at my wits and help. You will be amazed by the generosity of the designers inside Designer’s Room who are there willing to go that extra mile. And I’m really excited because we’ve got some new things that are coming out to designer’s room this year to just make it an even better place to be. Some in person things are coming your way as well.
But if this is interesting to you, go check it out. Go to rebeccahay.com/designers-room and you can read all about it. Try it. You can pay monthly and it’s just month by month. So if you decide it’s not for you, you can leave after the first month, or if you’re ready to dive all in, you get a special price and you can join us for the year and you’ve got, you become an annual member either way.
You really will see the value once you join us in there. And at the very least, you might just want to join us for June. Hello secrets, because that’s when our Secrets Showcase. I’m so excited. I hope you guys decide to join us. I will see you inside Designer’s Room.
