Scaling your design business doesn’t mean giving up control or creativity. It’s about stepping into your role as CEO and building a business that works for you.

In this solo episode, Rebecca shares the mindset shift that helped her stop reacting to every client email and start leading with clarity.

She walks you through five key journaling questions to help you visualize your next level, redefine what growth means for you, and start making decisions from a CEO mindset. Plus, she opens up about her own journey from hourly billing to fixed-fee confidence, saying no to misaligned projects, and finally taking a real vacation—without her phone blowing up.

episode highlights
  1. Why “scaling” doesn’t have to mean going corporate
  2. The difference between thinking like a designer vs. a CEO
  3. Five powerful questions to set your vision for the year ahead
  4. How to align your goals with the life you actually want
  5. The role of mentorship and accountability in real growth

 

Episode Resources

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

00;00;00;01 – 00;00;30;12
Rebecca Hay
Scaling doesn’t mean handing your business over to someone else. It doesn’t mean building something that you don’t want. It doesn’t mean corporate culture, but it does mean stepping into a CEO mindset. 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 frigging books. Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts to careers.

00;00;30;15 – 00;00;56;00
Rebecca Hay
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. 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.

00;00;56;03 – 00;01;18;23
Rebecca Hay
Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca and you are listening to Resilient by Design. When I first started hearing people talk about scaling, I’ll be honest, it totally freaked me out. We’re talking about that today, by the way. Scaling. To me, scaling meant going big, hiring this massive team complete. Stepping away from what I loved doing. And I remember thinking, no thanks.

00;01;18;23 – 00;01;37;24
Rebecca Hay
I’m not sure that’s what I signed up for. I didn’t start my design firm to stop designing. I didn’t want to become a full time manager or lose touch with my projects or my clients. I loved the creative work. I love the relationships, and I thought of losing control of all. That was terrifying. And so if that sounds familiar to you.

00;01;37;26 – 00;02;03;14
Rebecca Hay
If you’ve ever thought scaling means losing the business you love. I want you to know that doesn’t have to be true. Scaling is so personal. It looks completely different for every designer and every entrepreneur. And today I’m going to walk you through what it actually looks like. The mindset shift that I had to make to get here and I’m going to give you some journaling prompts to help you start planning your next year with actual clarity instead of just chaos.

00;02;03;17 – 00;02;24;16
Rebecca Hay
Let’s start thinking more like a CEO. In my early years, I felt like a designer. My brain was always in project mode. I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking about selections where I needed to go. Did I pick the right finish? Was that the right size so far for the room? You know what I’m talking about.

00;02;24;18 – 00;02;39;27
Rebecca Hay
I was always thinking about the project. How do I get the presentation done? How do I finish this project on time? How do I keep the client happy? Oh my God, they send an email. Are they upset with me? Like, oh my God. Swirling swirling swirling. And listen, there’s nothing wrong with that. When you care and you’re creative, I get that.

00;02;39;29 – 00;03;06;26
Rebecca Hay
But if you only think like a designer, you’re going to stay stuck in the day to day. You’re always reacting. You’re always putting out fires. You’re always putting that pushing that boulder up the hill and wondering maybe why you’re so dang exhausted. But the CEO, the CEO, asks a totally different question. The CEO asks, how do I build a business that actually works for me?

00;03;06;29 – 00;03;28;25
Rebecca Hay
And by that I mean a business that gives you the freedom that you want, the profit that you need, and the creative energy that you deserve. The CEO mindset zooms way out and looks at the bigger picture. So I’m going to give you a real example. A few years ago, I took this amazing trip to Europe with my family.

00;03;28;28 – 00;03;53;29
Rebecca Hay
We went to Krakow, Poland. That’s where my in-laws are from. My husband was actually born there. I was actually able to enjoy myself. I actually turned airplane mode on for the entire trip. I know, crazy, right? I was not checking my phone every five minutes. I wasn’t stressing about what was happening back at the office. I wasn’t fielding client emergencies.

00;03;53;29 – 00;04;21;10
Rebecca Hay
Checking in to make sure that the order got place. Making sure that my team had replied to a client email. I was sitting at a coffee shop in downtown Krakow, enjoying the view, watching my daughter dance and stand in circles. Why? Because I built the systems. I invested in my team, and I set up processes that meant the business could run without me micromanaging every single thing.

00;04;21;12 – 00;04;42;22
Rebecca Hay
I was able to breathe. Take a vacation. Live a little. But that didn’t happen overnight. And I know you know that it happened because I finally started acting like the CEO of my business. Yes, I got the processes, but it’s more than just having process. That only happened when I stepped back from just being the designer in it all the time.

00;04;42;24 – 00;04;56;05
Rebecca Hay
It breaks my heart when I hear designers, especially those who are in power of process, saying, well, I’m going to be in Europe, or I’m taking them out to go to Greece, or I’m we’re going to be in Portugal for a few weeks, but like, I can’t, I’m going to have to be checking in because the renovations still going on and the kind of breaks my heart.

00;04;56;10 – 00;05;17;02
Rebecca Hay
I’m like, you’re going to travel all that way. Spend all that money to be immersed in this other culture, but you’re not going to be immersed because you’re going to be constantly thinking about home. Here’s the truth that I wish somebody had told me a little bit earlier. Scaling is not a one size fits all. And if you’ve taken pop, you know I say all the time, there’s no one size fits all to running a design business.

00;05;17;07 – 00;05;46;08
Rebecca Hay
Well, this applies to scaling it as well. There’s no rulebook that says you have to scale a certain way. Just look at all the different examples that exist out there. Some designers scale by keeping things lean. Small team premium fees. Highly selective projects. They take on very few clients, but each project is a masterwork. Master work is a master piece.

00;05;46;11 – 00;06;06;19
Rebecca Hay
Each project is a masterpiece. It’s crazy, profitable and totally aligned with what they want to do. Other designers love the idea of a big studio and having a team to celebrate the wins with, and to collaborate and come up with ideas with and to go for lunches and to travel with. Right? There’s multiple designers on the team, probably at varying levels.

00;06;06;19 – 00;06;31;18
Rebecca Hay
There’s the junior, there’s the senior project managers, even maybe an operations person, an office person, the whole nine yards. And you know what? Both are completely valid. There’s no right or wrong answer here. Scaling just means creating a business that supports your goals instead of one that drains the frickin life out of you. Right. Can I get a hell yes breach.

00;06;31;20 – 00;06;49;14
Rebecca Hay
And that’s why it’s so important to stop and really ask yourself, what do I actually really want my business to look like? And that’s why I love visualization exercises. And that’s why in the very early module of Power of Process, if you taken it, you know, I have that whole vision, exercise, vision, your space and your life and your business.

00;06;49;14 – 00;07;08;10
Rebecca Hay
In ten years from now, that big bird’s eye view, that CEO mindset shit, not what looks good on Instagram, not what someone else is doing you feel jealous about. What do you want? What really lights you up?

00;07;08;13 – 00;07;25;15
Rebecca Hay
Okay, so I want you to do something with me right now. And I realize if you’re driving, this might be a hard. So you might want to, like, save this episode, download it and come back to it. But if you’re not driving or walking the dog or doing dishes or something that’s multitasking, grab a notebook. And if you’re doing one of those things, make a mental note just to come back.

00;07;25;15 – 00;07;44;18
Rebecca Hay
But or you could also even pause this episode and come back. Here are the questions that I ask myself every single year. And this is a great time of year to do it. I usually do it around this time, so they help me to zoom out and stop reacting to everything. It’s usually about October or November where I’m like, okay, whoa, Rebecca.

00;07;44;21 – 00;08;02;12
Rebecca Hay
Like a New Year’s coming. Let’s get ready. What do I see for it? And if I don’t take that time, I feel like I’m just thrown or catapulted into the next year running on autopilot all over again. Before I know it, it’s like June. July. And I’m thinking, whoa, what happened? So I really encourage you to do this work.

00;08;02;15 – 00;08;23;29
Rebecca Hay
Remember, though, there are no right or wrong answers. This is about you and your vision, and that can also shift as it has for me. We’re going to zoom out and you are going to start leading your business with actual intention. Here are the questions. Question number one. If you could wave a magic wand, what would your business look like one year from today?

00;08;24;01 – 00;08;57;17
Rebecca Hay
I want you to write it down without editing yourself. Team size, revenue. Money in the bank. Types of clients that you’re working with. How does your day feel? All of it. Just brain dump. Do not add it. Do not judge yourself. Question number two. What do you actually want more of? Is it time? Is it freedom? Profit? Bigger, better projects, more decorating a new build?

00;08;57;19 – 00;09;26;14
Rebecca Hay
Write down the first three things that pop into your head. Go! Question number three. Where are you still operating as the designer instead of the CEO? There’s three things that you’re doing right now that you know, you know, you know, could be handed off to someone else or potentially streamlined with a better system. Question number four. What’s one thing that you want to stop doing next year?

00;09;26;16 – 00;09;49;20
Rebecca Hay
Maybe it’s a type of project that drains you. Maybe it’s a task you absolutely hate. Maybe it’s even a habit, like answering client texts at 9:00 at night, or just reading them and sweating about it all night long until you reply the next day. Just saying. Some of us have done that. Maybe it’s weekend work. What do you want to stop?

00;09;49;22 – 00;10;10;14
Rebecca Hay
And now, lastly and finally, question number five. If you had to pick just one bold, exciting, slightly scary goal for the next 12 months, what would it be? The thing that makes your heart beat a little faster when you think about it? If you even jotted down 1 or 2 of those answers, or at least your brain has started thinking, whoa!

00;10;10;14 – 00;10;38;00
Rebecca Hay
Maybe you pause this while you’re driving and you’re thinking you already have the beginning of a roadmap for your next year. And that’s how scaling begins. By getting clear on what you want, not what Instagram tells you that you’re supposed to want. So along with that visioning work, because you guys know I love a good vision. I want to share a few key shifts that really unlock growth for me, because knowing what you want is step one.

00;10;38;00 – 00;11;04;07
Rebecca Hay
But you also need to know how to start moving toward it. So first of all, pricing with confidence. I move from hourly billing to fixed fee pricing. And oh my God, it was terrifying. But also so exciting. But it completely changed my bottom line. It also gave me so much more confidence. Charging confidently meant I could do fewer projects, but way better projects with clients that were so much more trusting.

00;11;04;09 – 00;11;27;16
Rebecca Hay
And honestly, they were just better. That was the first thing for me. The second thing was saying no to projects to protect my capacity, saying, no, this one’s really hard, especially when you’re still building and you have a money scarcity mindset. But saying no to projects that weren’t aligned created space for the clients and the work that I actually wanted.

00;11;27;20 – 00;11;52;14
Rebecca Hay
Saying no to projects that were just too small, or the style wasn’t really there, or fill in the blank. You cannot say yes to everything and expect to grow the business you actually want. Sure. Will there be slow times when you just got to say yes because you got to put food on the table? Sure. But there’ll be other times you’re like, I really love the money, but like, I don’t want I really don’t want to do that project.

00;11;52;17 – 00;12;13;12
Rebecca Hay
You got to trust your gut. And then third vision and planning guys every year around this time, and I will not lie, usually takes like a few months for me because, like, I’ve got other shit going on. I got a business to run. So I’m like, oh, I’m going to vision today. And I was like, oh yeah, no, gotta go record a podcast or okay, got to go to that meeting, got to pick up the kids.

00;12;13;12 – 00;12;31;28
Rebecca Hay
Okay. Well we’ll continue the visioning next week. You know what I mean? But every year around this time, I zoom way out and I ask myself, and I’m actually doing this right now, which is so funny that this is perfect timing for me to record this podcast. What do I want my business to look like next year? Do I want more time for myself?

00;12;32;00 – 00;12;50;20
Rebecca Hay
Do I want more profit? Do I want a bigger team? Do I want different types of projects? Do I want to take Fridays off? Do I want to take the summer off? Scaling is about aligning those goals with how you actually want to live and work, not how you think you’re supposed to work. So here’s the thing, though.

00;12;50;20 – 00;13;10;23
Rebecca Hay
Dreaming for some of us is very hard. But for some of us, it’s also quite easy, right? Sure, you get lots of ideas. Writing down the goals is step one, and it’s important. But the hard part sometimes is actually making it happen, right? Actually doing the thing and reminding yourself that you said you wanted to do the thing before you got distracted went off into the other thing.

00;13;10;26 – 00;13;37;01
Rebecca Hay
So to be really honest with you, I have not always done this alone. Every single time that I invested in mentorship, or joined a mastermind, or worked with a coach or partnered with a designer bestie, I made decisions faster. I would stop second guessing myself so much, and I stayed aligned with my vision. Instead of getting distracted by every shiny object that came my way because they would remind me.

00;13;37;08 – 00;14;07;16
Rebecca Hay
Rebecca, in December, you said this. How’s I gone? What happened to that? And you’re like, oh, yeah, I did say that. Guess that wasn’t really important or something else just took over. Having mentorship isn’t about someone telling you there’s one right way to do things. It’s about having guidance. And truthfully, the accountability is everything. And it’s accountability in the sense of like, no one’s going to make you do the thing, but they’re there to hold up a mirror and say, oh, you said you were going to do this thing.

00;14;07;19 – 00;14;31;17
Rebecca Hay
It’s funny, right now I’m doing a challenge that I’ve set for myself for this is I’m recording this during October, the month of October. And the challenge is movement that I’ve set. I want to move 30 hours in a month, which for many of you, that’s kind of a joke because you exercise every day, but I don’t. And so for me to do more or less an hour a day is very challenging to find the time between work and kids and all the activities and everything.

00;14;31;20 – 00;14;51;07
Rebecca Hay
And so as part of the the coaching group, I’m and they’ve put me with an accountability partner and she has a similar goal. And we message each other every morning and every night. And by golly, if that hasn’t been the kick in my butt I needed because like, let’s be honest, day one, I did 30 minutes a day to nothing.

00;14;51;10 – 00;15;05;07
Rebecca Hay
And when she messaged me was like, I did Pilates, what did you do? And I’m like, oh, nothing. The next day I’m like, I can’t go back to her and say, I did nothing again. I got to get that walk in and like, today I’m like, I gotta record this podcast. And then I got to go for an hour walk.

00;15;05;08 – 00;15;23;15
Rebecca Hay
I don’t even know if I have time to do that before picking up the kids from school, but I’m going to make it happen. Accountability is everything. And the community having those people there who are cheering you on and helping you figure out along the way that is so powerful for business and life. So to wrap up today, scaling doesn’t mean handing your business over to someone else.

00;15;23;15 – 00;15;41;19
Rebecca Hay
It doesn’t mean building something that you don’t want. It doesn’t mean corporate culture, but it does mean stepping into a CEO mindset, defining what growth actually looks like for you. And planning really intentionally just instead of winging it and like kind of hoping for the best and hoping that the next big project comes your way and all the things.

00;15;41;21 – 00;16;04;24
Rebecca Hay
So be ready to make the shift, and you’re ready to step into the CEO role and scale in a way that feels aligned with your actual goals and your actual life. That’s exactly what I want to help designers do inside my new mastermind. If you’re ready for clarity, you want accountability and you want to design that business that’s going to support your life in the long term.

00;16;04;26 – 00;16;24;17
Rebecca Hay
You got to join my mastermind. I already gave you the details there in the show notes. Just go Rebecca j.com/mastermind. But in the meantime and maybe you’re not ready. And that’s okay. I want you to keep doing the journaling. Go back, listen to this episode, journal out your answers to those five questions. Revisit them this week. If you did it.

00;16;24;20 – 00;16;43;23
Rebecca Hay
Because the sooner you get clear on your vision, the sooner you can actually start to build it. All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you are enjoying this podcast, I mean so, so love it. If you could leave me a review, Spotify or iTunes, leave us a nice glowing review. A five star review will give you a shout-out.

00;16;43;25 – 00;17;03;00
Rebecca Hay
I really appreciate it when you do take the time. That’s what makes this podcast grow and gets it in front of other people so that we can help more and more beautiful business owners. All right, I’ll see you soon.