The marketing trend train moves quickly. Whether it’s Facebook live or podcasts, affiliate marketing, e-books or Instagram, I notice too many designers spinning their wheels and trying to catch up to promises made about how these tools will deliver business results fast, or my personal favorite, create passive income. Aside from the fact that passive income is usually linked to very active online infrastructure setup and content creation now, you have to ask yourself, is this fun for me?

A designer recently told me that she wasn’t interested in more business; that she had enough business and that she didn’t need to build a list to market to her ideal client. She knew where her ideal client was. Some designers are determined to get in their own way. But here’s what I’d like to remind you.

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.

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’ve set fewer goals this year but they mean more and so before resistance starts to get in my way, I’ve decided I’m going to use another tactic. I often speak about baby steps and the idea that when you’re in alignment, change eases in. So that’s what I’m practicing. I’m doing at least one […]

Although I prefer to lurk in online groups as a rule—unless I run them—I recently saw a thread about a publication I used to love and it’s offer for cheap design services so I found myself chiming in. It started out interesting and potentially educational but like a lot of online talk, a couple of […]

I hope your 4th of July (Canada Day for those of you who live in the North) was spectacular and that you took a moment to think about how lucky you are to be free to run a business that is an expression of what you were called to do. Philanthropy and social responsibility are important […]