Interview with Dina Holland

I had the absolutely pleasure to sit down with the wonderfully talented designer and my good friend, Dina Holland of Dina Holland Interiors & of Honey and Fitz! We covered a lot of ground in this episode! We chatted about the value of the process (Dina was speaking my language) and how to set up your systems so that your business and team are successful. We also talked about Dina’s e-commerce business, Honey & Fitz. Dina was incredibly honest and transparent about how she set that up and how it runs now. Lastly, we talked about the value of team building and how the key to growing your business, is investing in people!

Dina Holland is the founder and principal designer at Dina Holland Interiors. You might also know her from her Instagram handle Honey and Fitz. Working primarily in residential design, Dina’s colorful, new New England traditional style has been featured in national publications such as House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens, and Coastal Living. She resides just outside of Boston with her husband, 2 young sons, and their French bulldog Parmigiano Reggiano, aka Reggie.

Throughout the episode, Dina is very honest about her team-building journey and how she runs her business now that she has a team. She shares how she went through the transition from solo designer and focusing primarily on the nitty-gritty of the design, to a business owner mentality and focusing on managing people and spending more time working ON her business instead of IN it. Dina talks about how difficult but necessary this transition can be, and how as a business owner you have to reassess where you add the most value and provide a unique skill set.

Words of Wisdom

Educate yourself as quickly as you can about what things actually cost.
Don’t assume you know what a client thinks something should cost. It’s for the client to decide how much they want to spend on something. Take the word budget out of your discussion and call it an investment.
There’s no shame in saying “I tried it but. it didn’t work”… so what, the point is I tried it and there are always more opportunities.

You can find Dina Holland at dinahollandinteriors.com and on Instagram @HoneyandFitz.