You may be quoted in the New York Times and get a flow of eyeballs to your website—maybe if the quote was that good—but was it in the right context? Will the right client invest in your services because of it? Or is it a fluff piece that diminishes your credibility? Similarly, not all online referral hubs and blogs are created equal.

By now you may have read the article in Architectural Digest’s online edition with the lede “This Is How Much the Average American Spends on a Kitchen Renovation.”

#WOW

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the picture of the renovated kitchen they used to tease the article…

Have you ever considered that your plans, strategies, way-of-getting-things-done are what are holding you back from getting what you want? Wait, what?

You’ve made the decision to go after something. You have a plan. You start to execute said plan and then something goes wrong, very wrong. In fact, it seems like that thing you want is even farther away than when you started.

Research shows that it doesn’t matter what your values are. The point is that you have them, because when your entire company is aligned around those values, it becomes more powerful.

Are you working at a pace that is making you numb to the consequences of your choices? Or worse are you unaware that the majority of your decisions are unconscious? Are you comfortable taking breaks during the day? Do you feel a strong sense of purpose at work? Are you in integrity with your calendar when it comes to keeping appointments with yourself? When you’re not in the performance zone, where do you spend your thoughts? Survival energy has been normalized in much of the culture of work but it is not sustaining.

I arrived home to a box from my publisher. Inside was a bottle of wine and a galley copy–my first–of my branding book Branding + Interior Design. As I’ve said before, this book wasn’t the book I originally started to write but it is the book it was supposed to be. It also represents the culmination of a lot of work, change, growth, and all that I’ve learned in supporting so many clients.

I know. You’re convinced your branding problem is a nuts and bolts aesthetic issue and you just want to zhush your website and get a geek to tweak your SEO. It would be so much faster. So would buying an online ad or paying for advertorial in a magazine, right? (I’ll save my thoughts on those things for another post.) But is it a guarantee that oodles and oodles of clients will start beating a path to your door? For the sake of argument, and your resistance, let’s just say that they do.

We’ve had some big news in the design industry over the last few weeks, starting with High Point and North Carolina’s HB2 bill, which revokes the protection of many in the design community. Leaders like Mitchell Gold of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, one of the most prominent furniture makers in the country and leadership […]

Shortly after her 42nd birthday, another broken marriage and scandal, fate was finally kind to Syrie Maugham. She credits her daughter as the creative impetus for her decorating career. “I began it all in Liza’s nursery when she was a baby girl. I had plenty of time on my hands and I just began to […]

When your clients are a fit, working is easy.