Are you ready to raise your interior design rates and finally attract high-value clients? In this episode, Rebecca Hay chats with Paige Leackfeldt of LANG Design Interiors, who shares how she transformed her business in just eight weeks using the Power of Process system.

After years working as a design director, Paige stepped out on her own — but soon found herself overwhelmed, underpricing, and overcommitted. By implementing systems, refining her services, and building client confidence, she went from saying yes to everything… to signing her biggest six-figure project to date.

Episode Highlights:
  1. How Paige overcame the fear of raising prices and learned to charge what she’s worth
  2. The power of documenting your process to boost client confidence and trust
  3. Why focusing on fewer, bigger projects can reduce chaos and increase profit
  4. How leveraging her construction background became a key differentiator
  5. The importance of progress over perfection in growing a business

If you’re an interior designer looking for actionable steps to streamline your business, price confidently, and win bigger projects, this episode is a must-listen.

Episode Resources

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

00;00;00;02 – 00;00;16;05
Paige Leackfeldt
Just making sure that you have the confidence to know what your worth. I think at the end of the day is really important because it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot, a lot of work. So making sure that you’re being adequately compensated is very important.

00;00;16;08 – 00;00;48;07
Rebecca Hay
All right. I’m Rebecca Hay and I’ve built a successful interior design business by trial and error podcasts, online courses and so many freaking books. Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts to careers. And now I’m finally in the place where I want to be. Throughout my journey, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m passionate about business and helping other entrepreneurs do the same.

00;00;48;10 – 00;01;12;00
Rebecca Hay
Each week, I’ll share tangible takeaways from my own experience and the experiences of other badass women to help you build your confidence and change your business. Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca, and you’re listening to Resilient by Design. Today I am interviewing one of my poppers. That’s what we affectionately call our power of process students. We call it pop.

00;01;12;06 – 00;01;37;02
Rebecca Hay
So when you take pop, you’re a popper. Her name is Paige Leackfeldt page is amazing. You’re going to feel so freaking inspired by this conversation because she has made a massive transformation in her business in, I would say, 6 to 8 weeks, like she has just taken it by storm. She dove into Power of Price and she’s completely transformed her business.

00;01;37;02 – 00;02;04;15
Rebecca Hay
She’s been in business two years. I think she’s been around that two year mark. But having been in the industry really for 15 years, it is wonderful to have page share her experience. If you are someone who’s on the fence with signing up for power of Process or you just want to get some insights on what are the key needle movers in the business, that if I shift them, if I if I move that needle, if I pull that lever, I can make a big transformation of my business.

00;02;04;15 – 00;02;28;28
Rebecca Hay
You’re going to love this episode. She is the owner of LANG Design Interiors, and she specializes in high end residential design, and she also offers commercial interiors as well. She’s been in the industry for 15 years, as I mentioned. She has an experienced design spectrum from higher education and health care projects to ultra high end residential, and has seen them in part of everything in between.

00;02;29;03 – 00;02;57;14
Rebecca Hay
Paige worked as design director for a construction company prior to starting her own business, so she was able to absorb a lot of construction experience on site, which afforded her the opportunity to earn the trust of contractors and the knowledge of timelines, importance of budget, and can act as a liaison to the client and the contractor. She talks about how she now recognizes this as a major strength, and how she’s leveraging this to bring in the right projects.

00;02;57;14 – 00;03;16;11
Rebecca Hay
And you’re going to hear the biggest project to date that she’s just landed. It sounds amazing, and I know she’s going to kill it because she is so experienced. So listen to my conversation with Paige. Enjoy. Welcome to the podcast, Paige. I’m so excited to have you here today.

00;03;16;14 – 00;03;18;27
Paige Leackfeldt
Thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting.

00;03;19;01 – 00;03;30;22
Rebecca Hay
We were just chatting offline about your slick office space behind you and your zoom. I love it if you’re on YouTube you can see it, but you look super professional. I’m so excited to pick your brain.

00;03;30;27 – 00;03;35;01
Paige Leackfeldt
Thank you. Thank you. I mean, it’s partly because of you, so I have you to thank.

00;03;35;03 – 00;03;43;21
Rebecca Hay
Oh, well, let’s definitely talk about that. I love it. Before we dive into our conversation, why don’t you just share with our audience who you are and what you do?

00;03;43;25 – 00;04;07;29
Paige Leackfeldt
My name is Paige Leackfeldt. I am the owner of LANG Design Interiors. We specialize in high end residential interiors and also commercial interiors, so my background is a little bit in everything, so I try not to veer away from anything fun and exciting when it comes to the project realm, but definitely more of a high end residential clientele.

00;04;08;01 – 00;04;13;18
Rebecca Hay
I love it, I love you for your story. I mean, you’ve been in the industry for what, 15 years? I think you said.

00;04;13;19 – 00;04;14;21
Paige Leackfeldt
Yeah, just about.

00;04;14;21 – 00;04;33;11
Rebecca Hay
And you’ve pretty much seen it all done at all, commercial or residential, high end, like, you name it. And so I love when we have designers who come to the podcast with such a breadth of experience. Because guys listening today, you were going to take home a lot from this woman. So get ready, get your notebooks. I feel like.

00;04;33;14 – 00;04;35;26
Paige Leackfeldt
I thank you.

00;04;35;28 – 00;04;43;23
Rebecca Hay
My first question for you pages. Were you always an entrepreneur and if not, what were you doing before you started your business?

00;04;43;26 – 00;05;10;08
Paige Leackfeldt
I was not always an entrepreneur. I never saw myself owning a business, starting a business, running a business. I never even really saw myself in a managerial role. It just never dawned on me that it was something that I had within me until well into my career. It just it was not something I was interested in, honestly. I kind of liked the idea of just doing the design work and being creative.

00;05;10;11 – 00;05;38;12
Paige Leackfeldt
But then as I got more and more experience, I realized that the whole design process and working with clients is a managerial role. You’re constantly managing something when it comes to the design of a project, whether it a timeline, whether it the client decisions. And I found that I was pretty good at it. I really found that partnering with a client or partnering with a contract actor really kind of was my strong suit.

00;05;38;12 – 00;05;45;11
Paige Leackfeldt
So it dawned on me a little bit later. I never thought that I would be here, but here I am almost two years in.

00;05;45;15 – 00;05;50;04
Rebecca Hay
Okay, so you’ve been in the industry for 15 years, but you’ve been running your business for two, is that correct?

00;05;50;05 – 00;05;54;01
Paige Leackfeldt
Yes. Yeah. Yep. So I was working for other companies beforehand.

00;05;54;02 – 00;05;59;22
Rebecca Hay
Take me back to the moment when you realized I’m going to do this on my own.

00;05;59;24 – 00;06;26;23
Paige Leackfeldt
Well, it’s kind of a funny story. I was working on a very large scale, high end residential house. I live in the part of upstate New York near the Finger Lakes. So one of the houses that I was doing was on Canandaigua Lake, and it was beautiful, completely different house style and esthetic that I’ve ever done. It was very modern, very high industrial look.

00;06;26;23 – 00;06;48;10
Paige Leackfeldt
So different for the Rochester, New York area and also for the lake. But we were teamed up with a general contractor and a architect. That was that was wonderful. I was actually working for the general contractor at the time. I was running their design department there, so they were building the house, I was designing the house, and then we had an amazing architect on the project.

00;06;48;10 – 00;07;11;17
Paige Leackfeldt
As well. It was a two year long project. The client was phenomenal. Probably, you know, one of the nicest couples I’ve ever worked with. They didn’t live in the area, so they were not necessarily constantly available. So it was a little bit of a strange way that we went about meeting and getting decisions made. But ultimately we made it work.

00;07;11;20 – 00;07;39;28
Paige Leackfeldt
And at the end of two years, I was standing in the large, open living room in the house, and I had just moved furniture in and I was styling it for a photo shoot, and it was a beautiful sunny day outside and I, like, scanned the lake, and then I made a complete 360 in the room and realized that I had either made the decision, designed, or selected everything on the inside of the house.

00;07;40;00 – 00;08;04;22
Paige Leackfeldt
Every single thing that I was looking at, I had some sort of responsibility for or could take ownership of the creativity for. So it just kind of dawned on me that after two years of managing the inside and the interior of this house, with the client and with the contractor and an architect, that I could take complete ownership of, of the interior of that house.

00;08;04;22 – 00;08;08;00
Paige Leackfeldt
And I was like, kind of good at this, actually.

00;08;08;02 – 00;08;11;09
Rebecca Hay
Like so. But you were working for someone else, like you weren’t on your own.

00;08;11;13 – 00;08;11;29
Paige Leackfeldt
Yes.

00;08;11;29 – 00;08;15;04
Rebecca Hay
Okay. So you were doing it, but you were doing it all for someone else. Got it.

00;08;15;10 – 00;08;42;05
Paige Leackfeldt
Yeah, yeah. And at the end of the day, it was all me. And, you know, while I loved the company I work for, it was it was really their project, you know, it felt like after being able to do this and it dawned on me that it was something that I could really do on my own because I did it on my own, essentially, from an interior perspective, it kind of just dawned on me that it was time that I was actually really good at it.

00;08;42;07 – 00;08;49;19
Rebecca Hay
I love that. What surprised you about going into business for yourself that you didn’t expect?

00;08;49;21 – 00;09;17;04
Paige Leackfeldt
It’s a sense of pride that you don’t necessarily think is going to come with it, knowing that your name is on it, knowing that it’s your labor of love. And at the end of the day, somebody else isn’t necessarily going to take credit for it. I think when you wake up in the middle of the night with these fever dreams of like, how to solve a design dilemma and you’re like, oh my gosh, finally the light bulb has gone off and you jot down the note.

00;09;17;04 – 00;09;57;05
Paige Leackfeldt
It’s like you can take ownership of these things where it’s yours at the end of the day, and it’s something that you share with a client that you’ve become very close with. It’s that pride that you get overall in the fact that you can do it, and you’re confident in it. So I think that’s what surprised me the most, is like being able to really take so much away from each and every project, whether it’s a client relationship or something really cool that I thought of in the middle of the night when I, you know, shut up and needed to jot down or something that finally takes fruition that teams of people, from installers to

00;09;57;05 – 00;10;06;25
Paige Leackfeldt
fabricators to designers to contractors, have put together and put time and energy into. I think that’s probably the pride angle of things is the most important to me.

00;10;06;25 – 00;10;16;15
Rebecca Hay
So that’s the positive side. Was there any drawback? Was there any challenge when you went out on your own? Were you just like, this is easy?

00;10;16;18 – 00;10;41;09
Paige Leackfeldt
I mean, at first the financial angle of things really scared me because I had really never run a business. Honestly, from a financial perspective, let alone any perspective. So I had a lot of learning to do from a financial angle. I kind of took it upon myself to learn as much as I can. I taught myself QuickBooks, which was really difficult, but like luckily, it’s self-explanatory.

00;10;41;09 – 00;10;49;25
Rebecca Hay
I am so impressed. In within the first two years of business, you taught yourself QuickBooks like, kudos to you woman, because not all designers have that in their brain.

00;10;49;27 – 00;10;53;27
Paige Leackfeldt
I probably don’t use it to its fullest potential, but I get by.

00;10;54;00 – 00;10;55;11
Rebecca Hay
So that’s okay.

00;10;55;14 – 00;11;18;03
Paige Leackfeldt
Yeah, so that part of it really scared me. And honestly, I think that was probably the biggest deterrent for a long time, is not feeling super confident in facing the work or, you know, invoicing adequately. And and the sales tax is a whole other thing. So making sure that I had all of that knowledge, I always felt like you have to know all that beforehand.

00;11;18;05 – 00;11;52;11
Paige Leackfeldt
And when I started my business, I was kind of like, I’m just going to learn as I go and see how this goes. And it ended up working out. It was just kind of a little bit nerve wracking up front that, I wasn’t going to be able to nail that. I also think another thing that really scared me is just the possibility that I could start up this business, and no one would care, and that clients wouldn’t come right, that I wouldn’t get to work, and I’d be sitting at home like, you know, whittling my thumbs, playing with my dog all day like I was nervous that I was going to do all this

00;11;52;11 – 00;12;00;14
Paige Leackfeldt
and leave a very stable position and go through the motions of starting this business, and then would not get any work.

00;12;00;16 – 00;12;19;16
Rebecca Hay
But I would tell you, that is a very common fear. Yeah. You know, I been doing this podcast now for four years and almost every designer has said the same thing. So you are not alone there. And I know you know that. So that’s totally normal to have those fears like worry about the financial piece, like, okay, I’m not getting a regular paycheck now in the same sense.

00;12;19;16 – 00;12;32;16
Rebecca Hay
It’s really up to me to bring in the revenue. And can I financially do this? I have to learn my numbers. And then there’s that fear of like, just because you hang up your shingle doesn’t mean everyone’s coming. Knocking on your door, right?

00;12;32;18 – 00;12;53;06
Paige Leackfeldt
Right. Exactly. And I was nervous because while I had a beautiful website that I was very proud of, I’m really not wonderful at the social media angle of things. And right now it’s just me. I’m not. I don’t hire, I haven’t hired anybody. I’m running the financial angle of things, the social media angle things and the design angle of things.

00;12;53;06 – 00;13;11;07
Paige Leackfeldt
So right now it’s it’s really all on my shoulders. And I knew that from a marketing standpoint, if I can’t get my information out there and if I’m not in front of people, and I also don’t have clients that are going to talk about me out in town like nobody’s going to find me.

00;13;11;09 – 00;13;12;15
Rebecca Hay
Right?

00;13;12;18 – 00;13;17;10
Paige Leackfeldt
I had that major fear that no one was going to know that I existed on my own.

00;13;17;13 – 00;13;31;16
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, but they found you and you started to run your business. And so I’m super curious because you took power of process. How far into your business were you and what did your business look like before you decided to sign up for the course?

00;13;31;23 – 00;13;56;22
Paige Leackfeldt
So I took our process about a year in, I took it earlier this year. The first year was really, really wonderful. I got a lot of great clients, but it was also like I said, yes to everything. There was no off switch. It was a very, very busy year, I think, because I was so nervous that I never knew where the next client was coming or the next project was coming.

00;13;56;22 – 00;14;17;14
Paige Leackfeldt
I just said yes, regardless of the projects, regardless of the budget, how much the client was willing to pay for my time, I just said yes, which I think is really important and a good thing to do your first year, to get your portfolio up and making sure that you get a lot of work under your belt right away, if you can.

00;14;17;16 – 00;14;34;02
Paige Leackfeldt
But it was also just mayhem. The whole year was mayhem. And I think I sent over 36 proposals for my time for new clients and only three said no. So I was moving and and.

00;14;34;13 – 00;14;41;28
Rebecca Hay
Okay, so full stop. You weren’t charging enough, obviously. You know, we know that now. Okay. Keep going.

00;14;41;29 – 00;14;52;24
Paige Leackfeldt
I know, and honestly, that was like, my biggest takeaway from the course is like, if every client says yes, you’re not charging, you know. But. So it was like the light bulb went on.

00;14;52;26 – 00;14;53;13
Rebecca Hay
Right.

00;14;53;19 – 00;15;14;06
Paige Leackfeldt
But yeah, I was getting nervous because I’m like, it’s just me. Like, I don’t know who like, I’m trying to invent time here to be able to work on all of this. And I’m coming up with nothing. I can’t clone myself. So what am I going to do here? So the first year was was total mayhem and so I saw your posts on social media.

00;15;14;06 – 00;15;38;19
Paige Leackfeldt
I found you through just a search on Instagram, and you started to pop up more and more and it kind of just like I was at that point where I was like, I need some guidance. And unfortunately, in my area, a lot of the designers don’t do a lot of networking. We have events here and there, but there’s no real opportunity for designers to sit with other designers and say, hey, how much do you charge?

00;15;38;19 – 00;15;57;27
Paige Leackfeldt
Like how do you do a markup? Do you do this? Do you do that? Everyone’s very hush hush about about how they run their business. And so being new to it, I had no idea where to start and was just kind of winging it. The fact that everybody was saying yes, I was like, okay, I need to start with how I price my work.

00;15;57;29 – 00;16;22;29
Paige Leackfeldt
And so that was really what convinced me to take the courses, because I knew and it honestly gave me comfort knowing there were other designers out there who were having this same struggle. And we’re thinking, you know, I don’t know where to start, really. I know I want to do it, and I know I’m good from a design angle, but like, how do I run this and systematize the whole thing to make it look legitimate and professional?

00;16;22;29 – 00;16;25;28
Paige Leackfeldt
So that’s why I took it and it helped me.

00;16;26;01 – 00;16;50;29
Rebecca Hay
Oh wow. Oh yeah. Okay. We’re going to talk about that. I love that you were only one year into your business. You know, I have to say I’ve really I’ve seen so many designers come through the course over the years, like hundreds of designers have taken the course, and there’s always success. Everyone has success. But the people who seem to really catapult, to be honest with you, like yourself, are the ones who take it really early on in their business journey.

00;16;51;01 – 00;17;10;21
Rebecca Hay
Not to say you can’t have incredible transformations if you’re ten, 15, 20 years in, because we’ve seen that too. But I do see that because you see immediately, okay, there’s something missing. Like there’s got to be an easier way. What are other people doing? Like come on. Like, this is a lot like you say, you’re wearing all the hats.

00;17;10;21 – 00;17;26;06
Rebecca Hay
Your solo business owner, like you don’t have a business partner to, to bounce ideas off of. And people can talk to their family and their friends and their partners, but it’s just not the same, right? You know, for me, I know I tried to like, bounce all the ideas off of my like, assistance or my, like, junior designer.

00;17;26;07 – 00;17;51;05
Rebecca Hay
Like that wasn’t the answer either. Right. And so there’s something so savvy, like, I love talking to designers like you who who get it? You’re like, I need to bring in some expertise and some help and support because I want to really scale this and I really want to. Or even if you don’t want to scale, you want to eliminate that chaos, that mayhem, like you said, so that you can have a bit more of balance and feel a little bit more in control.

00;17;51;05 – 00;17;52;16
Rebecca Hay
Would you say that was you?

00;17;52;18 – 00;18;13;19
Paige Leackfeldt
Absolutely. Yeah. I felt like I was just flailing around like I had clients coming in left and right, contractors coming in left and right. My brain was jumping from project to project every day. Yeah, that’s always tough too, because then you potentially make the wrong call because things are coming at you from all directions. And what’s the paint color for this?

00;18;13;19 – 00;18;39;25
Paige Leackfeldt
And what’s the finish on this and what’s this and what’s that? And it’s like if you have too many balls in the air, eventually something’s going to fall, right? I knew that I had to somehow organize this and take the pieces that worked, and then eliminate the pieces that didn’t. I think the first year was just so telling for what makes sense for me and what doesn’t, and where I thrive and where I don’t.

00;18;39;27 – 00;19;01;26
Paige Leackfeldt
I think being very honest with myself and, you know, saying yes to everybody was great at first, but now we really need to hone in on project size and budget and type of client. I mean, the first meeting with the client means a lot to me, because I need to know that we’re on the same page, that we’re going to get along the whole time.

00;19;01;28 – 00;19;18;11
Paige Leackfeldt
And I think that the best projects, you know, stem from a really good first impression from from a great client. So it taught me a lot that first year. But the course was really, really helped me to navigate through what worked and what didn’t.

00;19;18;13 – 00;19;29;15
Rebecca Hay
Yeah. So let’s talk about the course. I’d be curious to know what was 1 or 2 moments that you had after signing up for the course that you didn’t expect to have?

00;19;29;17 – 00;19;54;12
Paige Leackfeldt
My biggest takeaway was probably the client perspective on meeting with a designer, what they’re looking for, what they want you to be. Essentially, they want you to be organized. They want you to know, you know, not only be good at the design angle of things, but they want to know that you’ve come up with a system, that you have a process that makes a lot of sense.

00;19;54;14 – 00;20;36;29
Paige Leackfeldt
I didn’t have that at first. I was just kind of doing things as they came up when the contractor needed them making decisions with the clients as we went, like it wasn’t documented at all. And my biggest takeaway, I think, was that it really makes sense to jot down everything that I do from very start to very finish of a project and make sure that the client understands what those things are, how much I’m involved, everything that I’m a part of, all the walkthroughs that I attend on site, the meetings that we have, from a team perspective, and then one on one with the client, the presentations that I do, the prep for those

00;20;36;29 – 00;21;10;19
Paige Leackfeldt
presentations. So the selections for this, that and the other thing and when they need to happen. So before I started my business I worked for a general contractor, as I said. And so I have a lot of on site experience from a construction, standpoint. And I learned a lot from construction timelines and when things need to be done, you know, from a construction type basis and how much the contractor is really relying on the designer to provide those specs or, direction on what’s going where or, or yada, yada.

00;21;10;19 – 00;21;45;12
Paige Leackfeldt
Whatever it comes up, you have to be ready and have to have those decisions made. So working for them, I got a lot of on site perspective on what works from a contractor’s, point of view. So I think the biggest light bulb for taking the pipe course was that I needed to make sure that not only did I systemize the entire thing, but also know that my biggest quality is the fact that I come from a construction background and how clients see that, you know, when they sit with me.

00;21;45;24 – 00;22;20;24
Paige Leackfeldt
A lot of designers in my area don’t necessarily have a big construction background, and they’re maybe not as comfortable on a job site. And so when I’m in potential, situations where the client is interviewing many designers, I think that establishing that as my edge has always been kind of the one thing that clients really admire and want on their project, because having a good relationship between me and the client is always great, but making sure I have a good relationship with the contractor and the site guys and the site teams makes a lot of sense too.

00;22;20;29 – 00;22;35;05
Paige Leackfeldt
So I always want to make sure that the client perspective of me and my business seems very organized and professional, and that I know what I’m doing at the end of the day, and I’m not flailing with all these things coming at me with a million projects in the air.

00;22;35;09 – 00;22;54;22
Rebecca Hay
I like what you just said there. It’s like, I want them to see that I know what I’m doing. It’s like we know what we’re doing, but it’s so much about perception and a large portion of the course, if not the full under through line. And I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this, but is really about the customer experience.

00;22;54;22 – 00;23;11;09
Rebecca Hay
It’s really I’m teaching you how to run a project from A to Z, basically. And here’s all the steps and here’s all the systems that you can do. I mean, as much as we can do in a six week time period, but really it’s always from the lens of the client. And I don’t know, were you expecting that out of the course?

00;23;11;11 – 00;23;35;10
Paige Leackfeldt
No, I knew that from a designer perspective. I know that I’m confident that I can accomplish anything. I know that I can, from start to finish, do the design angle of things. But what’s really more important is making sure that you’re guiding the client through the project as seamlessly as you can. Because I could just go, go, go go go.

00;23;35;13 – 00;23;59;11
Paige Leackfeldt
The reason why clients engaged designers is because they need that assistance. There are a lot of projects where a general contractor is relying on the homeowner to make a lot of decisions on their own, and I think the homeowner doesn’t necessarily understand how much that really is. It’s a lot of detail. It’s a lot of things that you have to keep organized and keep track of.

00;23;59;13 – 00;24;25;13
Paige Leackfeldt
A designer is in place to really help you with those things and walk you down that path instead of, you know, making sure that instead of the homeowner making it up as they go, you know, and really not understanding. A really good friend of mine is completely revamp, renovating her entire upstairs or adding a whole addition and I’m not working with her professionally, but she called me, and she’s like, the plumber needs to know where all the shower things go.

00;24;25;13 – 00;24;51;03
Paige Leackfeldt
I have no idea what to tell her. So it’s kind of like you have to know that a designer will help you through those small things that you don’t necessarily see coming. So I think having a a designer on board really helps with the organization of the project, and having an organized interior designer is even better. And that’s what you taught me.

00;24;51;03 – 00;24;55;29
Rebecca Hay
So amazing. And do you feel more organized?

00;24;56;02 – 00;25;19;09
Paige Leackfeldt
Yeah I do, I feel like I at least have a system that I can refer back to when things get to feel like mayhem. I can always go back and be like, okay, what’s next? What do I have to do next? What did I write down as my next process? You know, the client’s perception of making them, knowing and having confidence that I know what I’m doing and that I’m capable of doing it means the world to me.

00;25;19;09 – 00;25;26;26
Paige Leackfeldt
And that’s kind of my number one. I don’t want them to get through a whole renovation and be like, oh my God, she was a mess.

00;25;26;28 – 00;25;43;21
Rebecca Hay
I want to take a minute just to talk about, because you’ve mentioned this a couple times, this idea of streamlining your offers. I’m curious, was that something that came out of the course? Were you trying to say yes to everything before? And then you took the course and you were like, oh, I don’t have to say yes to everything.

00;25;43;21 – 00;25;47;09
Rebecca Hay
I need to get clear on who I want to serve. Talk to me about that transformation.

00;25;47;16 – 00;25;55;13
Paige Leackfeldt
Yeah. You should have seen my website services page before I took the course. It was like six miles long of things that I could do for you.

00;25;55;13 – 00;26;02;20
Rebecca Hay
Oh, my gosh. If you have a screenshot of that, that would be a really good before and after. I’m just saying I’d like to include that in the course content.

00;26;02;27 – 00;26;31;29
Paige Leackfeldt
You know, I was like, you could talk to me for the smallest thing and I would say yes to it. That was fine. For the first couple of months, you know, it made a lot of sense upfront, but the course taught me that the client’s perception of seeing a list of bazillion items long is just confusing, and it feels like I’m just in the business of you name it, I do it, which isn’t necessarily the case for me.

00;26;31;29 – 00;26;54;08
Paige Leackfeldt
I don’t want to be in a situation where a client could really pick and choose what I’m a part of. I really like the idea of being in charge and with the client through every decision, from very start to very finish. It made a lot of sense because it felt like the end product made more sense in the end.

00;26;54;10 – 00;27;18;18
Paige Leackfeldt
So I noticed through the course that if you streamline how much you offer and you get the point across on your website or your social media is that this is what I do, I like to be involved from day one to the very last day when we’re photographing a project so that I know everything seamlessly came together. And it’s exactly what the client wants.

00;27;18;20 – 00;27;35;15
Paige Leackfeldt
Because sometimes if the client goes off on their own and says, I’m going to pick the tile for this room, or I’m going to, you know, do all the window treatments throughout the house without any sort of input, then sometimes things could get missed, maybe they want to motorized their shades, and that’s something that they didn’t bring up.

00;27;35;17 – 00;28;03;09
Paige Leackfeldt
You know, while we were wiring for motorization, really anything could come up. So I wanted to make sure that on my website I was getting the point across that here are my phases the conceptualization phase, implementation phase, and material selection phase so that you know that from start to finish, I have my process and I’m going to be along the ride with you from start to finish instead of being like, well, I need you for this, this, this and this.

00;28;03;09 – 00;28;10;13
Paige Leackfeldt
And that’s it. Because that’s hard for me to then make sure that in the end, you’re very truly happy with everything that’s selected.

00;28;10;15 – 00;28;22;26
Rebecca Hay
Yeah. Okay. I’d love it if you could share one recent big achievement that you’ve had since taking pop. And I realize it’s been like two months since not even the course just wraps. Like what? Like a few weeks ago?

00;28;22;27 – 00;28;24;21
Paige Leackfeldt
Well, I already have one, so that’s good.

00;28;24;21 – 00;28;27;02
Rebecca Hay
Okay, I’d like paint a picture of what it looks like.

00;28;27;02 – 00;28;50;25
Paige Leackfeldt
Tell us before the course. I really had no idea where to start from a pricing angle. I was just kind of like, thinking of how much time a project could potentially take me. Not necessarily thinking about how much the client may need, a little bit more hand-holding or may need me to come to showrooms or not be a part of that angle like I had no idea from.

00;28;50;25 – 00;29;05;13
Paige Leackfeldt
Like, I would just have a quick conversation with a client about their project and then send them a proposal. I really sometimes didn’t even see the project beforehand. I didn’t necessarily know too much about it. I was just like throwing a number out there and hoping for the best.

00;29;05;18 – 00;29;11;07
Rebecca Hay
You would propose a fee without seeing or knowing anything about the project?

00;29;11;09 – 00;29;12;29
Paige Leackfeldt
Sometimes. Sometimes?

00;29;12;29 – 00;29;16;05
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, lady, I know that’s wild.

00;29;16;09 – 00;29;17;28
Paige Leackfeldt
I told you it was mayhem.

00;29;18;03 – 00;29;26;28
Rebecca Hay
Oh my goodness, we I mean, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for your honesty. I’m sure someone listening is like I do that. Oh my gosh.

00;29;27;01 – 00;29;32;09
Paige Leackfeldt
I mean, you want the project. You know, you want to be as amenable and as easy as possible.

00;29;32;11 – 00;29;36;14
Rebecca Hay
Okay. We’re not even going to go there, okay? That’s what you were doing. But you don’t do that anymore.

00;29;36;17 – 00;29;55;03
Paige Leackfeldt
Correct? Correct. Now I get a very like I have set it up based on your recommendations, where I have a call in place before I go to the house. And then when I’m at the house, that’s where more a majority of some work is done and questions are asked and, you know, yada yada. That’s where you learn everything.

00;29;55;06 – 00;30;34;24
Paige Leackfeldt
Before that. Yeah, I was just kind of hoping for the best. I just wanted clients to say yes. I just wanted that next project, and that didn’t benefit me financially. And it didn’t benefit me from a time perspective, because it was just sinking all my time into things that just weren’t going to adequately financially benefit me. The course taught me that being able to systemize everything, getting my thoughts together when it comes to how my process goes, and from start to finish, what I do and how I walk the client through those steps really made sense to be in a presentation that I either sent to the client via email, or had them into my

00;30;34;24 – 00;30;55;23
Paige Leackfeldt
office to go through. When I did that, when I got every all of my thoughts into a presentation, it really solidified how I do business and how I run things, and it made me look way more professional than just being like, just hire me. I’ll say yes to anything like it’s, yeah, just hire me. I’ll come over. I’ll do whatever you need.

00;30;55;23 – 00;31;26;21
Paige Leackfeldt
Like, it really made me look like I knew what I was doing because all of that information was in one place and very easy for a client to understand. So from the course, I learned that it made a lot of sense to send a lot of information to the client up front, make sure they know a lot about you, how you do things, how you price your work, how you do this, that, and the other thing, because they make a more educated decision on whether or not they want to use you, if they know more about you.

00;31;26;24 – 00;31;57;29
Paige Leackfeldt
And so it also gave me a really good opportunity to highlight the things that are good about hiring my business, like the fact that I have construction experience. You know, I have a whole slide on why it’s important to hire a designer and why you need this type of expertise on your project and all of these things kind of came together very seamlessly in that it very honestly and openly gives you a very clear picture as a client, what to expect from my business when you hire me.

00;31;58;01 – 00;32;22;26
Paige Leackfeldt
And that’s something I didn’t have before. So I was in the running for a very large scale residential project in the area. Biggest project that I have maybe ever done solo, and I was up against a couple other designers in the area. When the client came to visit me, I went through my whole presentation. I went through it about a thousand times days before, just like prepping.

00;32;22;26 – 00;32;26;14
Paige Leackfeldt
I was like talking to no one in my office, like rehearsal at all. Just.

00;32;26;17 – 00;32;32;13
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, I love it. Oh my God, I’m like getting goosebumps already. I can’t wait to hear this.

00;32;32;15 – 00;32;48;18
Paige Leackfeldt
Because I just knew, like, I wanted to be a part of the project. I really got a good feeling about it. The contractor that was awarded the project is a contractor that I love working with, and so I knew that it was going to be set up really well for success. So I really wanted to get the project.

00;32;48;18 – 00;33;27;05
Paige Leackfeldt
And so with the help of your course and also putting all of my information into this presentation and sitting with the client and making sure she really understood from start to finish what I’m involved in really helped me make sure that the pricing that I had updated, which was far too low my first year in business, the updated pricing really meant something to this client, because it’s a keyhole into how much I’m actually going to be working on a maybe potential two year long renovation or a new build.

00;33;27;07 – 00;33;46;16
Paige Leackfeldt
So when you list all of the things that you’re going to be doing, and all of the time that you’re spending on things and all of the showrooms that you’re visiting and presentations you’re prepping for and the paint colors you’ll be selecting and working with the cabinetry vendor and designing all the cabinetry, like all of that stuff is a lot of time.

00;33;46;18 – 00;33;53;17
Paige Leackfeldt
And making sure the client understands that I’m going to be fully committed to this for two years. So my price is going to reflect that.

00;33;53;22 – 00;33;58;24
Rebecca Hay
Okay, you have me on the edge of my seat like what happened?

00;33;58;27 – 00;34;30;07
Paige Leackfeldt
The client ended up coming in. I went through my full presentation and before I was even completely finished, she’s like, I want to work with you. I want to work with you. I really hope you want to work with me, because I get a really good vibe here. I really think that you’re so organized. You have a system in place, you have a really good relationship with the contractor, and I love the fact that you’re not afraid of the job site and that you’re going to be there often and work with these people, and it was my first six figure contract.

00;34;30;09 – 00;34;37;05
Rebecca Hay
What? Yeah. Yeah, that is amazing. Congratulations.

00;34;37;07 – 00;34;40;26
Paige Leackfeldt
Thank you. Thank you. So a lot of buildup but yeah.

00;34;40;26 – 00;35;16;25
Rebecca Hay
But that was a word that okay this is crazy. I have to say earlier today I recorded a podcast with another very recent pop graduate, Melissa McDonald. I’m not sure where that will air in relation to your episode, but probably close together. She literally just told me that one of the biggest wins she’s had. Again, it’s only been a few weeks since we wrapped the course, is that she was up against two other designers for this massive project, and she won it, and that her process was a game changer and her new pricing helped her literally like, I can’t, you can’t make this shit up.

00;35;16;28 – 00;35;17;11
Paige Leackfeldt
Yeah.

00;35;17;13 – 00;35;21;26
Rebecca Hay
You can’t like, this is amazing, right? So excited for you.

00;35;22;01 – 00;35;48;23
Paige Leackfeldt
Thank you. I mean, honestly, if you give a client a number, that kind of seems way too low to them. They don’t respect you. From the get go they think you know. Oh she’ll, she’ll do anything you want. The level of your pricing to reflect a how much you’re working on it. But be how much, you know you’re bringing a lot of expertise to the table to.

00;35;48;23 – 00;36;09;01
Paige Leackfeldt
And they’re going to have to pay for that expertise. And you’re also creating a bridge between a lot of vendors that they will need in order to accomplish what they want. So your pricing is so important. And at first it was just kind of like, I just need to get paid. I just need to like be able to afford, you know, my home.

00;36;09;04 – 00;36;11;29
Rebecca Hay
Is your fancy office because you have a fancy office that you’re in that.

00;36;12;00 – 00;36;14;01
Paige Leackfeldt
Game later that came later. Later.

00;36;14;01 – 00;36;20;01
Rebecca Hay
I love how you say later like it was years later. Like you’ve been in business for a hot minute. Woman. This is good, I love it.

00;36;20;04 – 00;36;38;04
Paige Leackfeldt
Yeah. So, I mean, just making sure that you have the confidence to know what your worth, I think at the end of the day is really important because it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot, a lot of work. So making sure that you’re being adequately compensated is very important.

00;36;38;06 – 00;36;57;04
Rebecca Hay
So this this project that you landed the six figure contract, if you had to quantify it compared to what you would have charged before taking the course, would it be double? Would it be triple like, how would you compare it if that same project had to come your way before, you know, let’s say in December.

00;36;57;04 – 00;37;22;29
Paige Leackfeldt
I would have never had the confidence to put a six figure number on my proposal before this course because it felt to me like it wasn’t worth it until I wrote everything down. And then I was like, hold up, this is so worth it because of all these things that I’m a part of, all this time that I’m putting into it blood, sweat, tears, hopefully no tears.

00;37;22;29 – 00;37;49;00
Paige Leackfeldt
But hopefully no blood either. But it’s a lot of things that you’re a part of and and you become the partner for the client throughout the entire thing. You become their first call. You become that, you know, liaison between the client and the contractor. So beforehand, I would have not even entertained a price on a square footage basis.

00;37;49;03 – 00;38;12;01
Paige Leackfeldt
And I knew with this house it made sense to do that because it’s 7000ft². I knew that it was going to be a two year long process. That was probably going to mean that if I am still working solo, throughout that entire thing was going to mean that it was going to be me 100% of the time for two years.

00;38;12;02 – 00;38;31;09
Paige Leackfeldt
So I wanted to make sure that I was going to be covered for anything that came up for them so that I could fully commit to them. So beforehand, I wouldn’t have even scratched maybe a third of what the signed contract is for. Because I would have felt insecure about the number that I had sent to them.

00;38;31;09 – 00;38;49;14
Rebecca Hay
You didn’t see your own value. It’s like you’re able to sit down and you really you really look at what you’re doing and you get it organized. And when you start to put things together so that you can present it to a client so that you can present it to someone else, that’s when we really can start to reflect on, upon our own value.

00;38;49;24 – 00;39;10;14
Rebecca Hay
And when you’re too busy working in your business, which it sounds like you were doing before, and we’ve all been there, you don’t take the time, you don’t pause to reflect or look or set up the documents or create a presentation. And for those listening, that’s something I teach inside of pop. It’s like the consultation pitch deck is what I call it, but it’s essentially a sales PowerPoint.

00;39;10;21 – 00;39;27;02
Rebecca Hay
I use Google Slides, but you can use every water, Canva. And it’s something that, you know, you use it to present your firm to your client. How what’s what. You know, what makes you unique and what stands out and what is your process? How are you going to walk them through this all the way to the end?

00;39;27;02 – 00;39;46;04
Rebecca Hay
And when you start to like what you said, you said like creating that slide show, that presentation for you and everything you learned, obviously inside the course and getting clear on who you want to serve. And there’s so many things we didn’t even touch on today, but is that it shows you, oh, wow, I do do wow, I am awesome, right?

00;39;46;10 – 00;39;55;20
Rebecca Hay
Because you are. You have such incredible experience. And when we feel confident in the service we provide, that’s when the client feels confident in us.

00;39;55;20 – 00;39;56;14
Paige Leackfeldt
Exactly.

00;39;56;14 – 00;40;12;06
Rebecca Hay
And that is where the transformation lies. And we all say like, oh, the client didn’t trust me. I just want to trust in clients. Well, your client’s not going to trust you if you don’t trust yourself and if you don’t see the value yourself. And that’s that was my experience. And that’s why I teach this. And now, like I’m teaching it.

00;40;12;06 – 00;40;27;15
Rebecca Hay
And people are, like, picking it up within a few weeks and they’re transforming their business. I’m like, shit, man. This took me like years to figure out. I am so happy, though, that the transformations are so fast. Like it’s amazing. Yeah. Thank you for being on the podcast. I am so thrilled for you.

00;40;27;15 – 00;40;28;03
Paige Leackfeldt
Thank you.

00;40;28;08 – 00;40;39;26
Rebecca Hay
I cannot wait to watch this project unfold. You have to keep us updated. But before we go and end our time together today, do you have a last nugget of wisdom for our listeners today?

00;40;39;28 – 00;41;07;24
Paige Leackfeldt
I think the biggest one is progress over perfection. When you go over it and over it and over it in your head, and really decide that starting your own business is what you want to do. Just making progress is better than being perfect at it upfront. Learning as much as you can throughout the entire process. Knowing that you’re never done with the learning angle of things, and you can’t get to a point where you’ve started your own business, and then that’s it.

00;41;08;01 – 00;41;35;06
Paige Leackfeldt
You really have to make sure that you are involved in educational courses like path, to make sure that you are doing things the very best that you can. Doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be spectacle. You’re up front and you can say yes to everything in the first year. But knowing where you thrive and where you feel as though you’re perfect and highlighting those areas is really important.

00;41;35;06 – 00;41;36;28
Paige Leackfeldt
And I think that’s my biggest takeaway.

00;41;37;01 – 00;41;55;19
Rebecca Hay
I love that that’s my motto progress over perfection. I don’t know if you know this though. I was a few years ago now. Our junior designer at the time, and she moved up with us. But Claudia, for Christmas, we did like do these Christmas dinners and she gifted me for Christmas. It was a little circular pendant and on it it said progress over perfection.

00;41;55;21 – 00;42;13;29
Rebecca Hay
And she was like, this made me think of you. And I wear it on the days where I have to remind myself, because it’s easier said than done sometimes. And I preach this all, all day long, but we can get into our heads. And so it’s about forward momentum and investing in yourself and your business. And it’ll always pay off.

00;42;14;02 – 00;42;23;03
Rebecca Hay
Yes, you know, and you’re going to keep learning and you’re going to make mistakes, but you’re going to keep fixing. You’re going to keep bettering how you do your business. And it will always pay off.

00;42;23;05 – 00;42;44;20
Paige Leackfeldt
100%. And I have you to fully thank for the transformation of my business. Really, I feel so much more confident in the way that I can go about maintaining projects that are already in the running, and then also getting new clients that I really feel are perfect fits for me, and also making sure that I can price what I’m worth.

00;42;44;20 – 00;42;48;15
Paige Leackfeldt
So I really owe a lot of that confidence to you. So thank you.

00;42;48;19 – 00;42;56;26
Rebecca Hay
You are so welcome lady. I am just so excited for you. I can’t wait to watch your journey. You’re going to stay in touch. Keep me posted on how it’s going.

00;42;56;27 – 00;43;01;15
Paige Leackfeldt
I will, I will thank you so much for having me.

00;43;01;17 – 00;43;19;00
Rebecca Hay
Guys, I actually did not know when I went to record with Paige that she has had such a transformation in such a short time. I literally was just telling her after we stopped recording that I had reached out to my team and said, let’s interview some poppers to talk about their experience in the course. But you know what?

00;43;19;00 – 00;43;35;26
Rebecca Hay
Let’s maybe let’s reach out to ones that took the course, not the last cohort, but the one before, because like, we got to give them some time to implement and transform. And Sarah was like, well, we got a couple people that I think could be really, really great interviews. And they did just finish. So I was like, okay, sure.

00;43;35;28 – 00;43;59;14
Rebecca Hay
And holy heck, Paige, you’ve more than tripled what you would have charged for that same type of project, and you’ve attracted projects that you weren’t attracting before, like it’s been a few weeks since we wrapped the course. So guys, if you are ready to have even a half the transformation that page has had, you’re going to want to join us inside our next power process.

00;43;59;17 – 00;44;33;16
Rebecca Hay
If you are ready to make moves in your business to stop winging it, to get away from that mayhem, as Paige described it, of just saying yes to every project and not pricing your services accurately. Power of process is going to help you. It is the one stop shop to get your business in order to show up professionally so that your confident with your clients so that you can attract the clients who are the right fit for you, and that you can just hit the ground running because you know that you can do it.

00;44;33;22 – 00;44;57;07
Rebecca Hay
Just like Paige said, having that confidence is a game changer and power of process will give it to you. Head on over to Rebecca. Com forward slash power of process and we will see you in our very first opening ceremony zoom call. All right. See you soon.