Turning Passion into a Sustainable Business with Jacqueline of Behind the Design Co.

Jacqueline, thank you so much for being on the show today. I'm looking forward to hearing about your journey from the design world to how you help people take, take their hobbies into profitability. Thank you so much again for joining me.

Yeah, thank you. It's such a pleasure.

So before we get into the questions and getting to know more about you, where are you located?

I'm actually in Colorado, just south of Denver in suburbs.

Excellent. I love Colorado. I was down there, um, well, I think it was last December. I love that area. Yeah. Um, so let's, let's dive into a bit about your story, um, and how you got to where you are now with Behind the Design and talk a bit about what that is.

Sure, absolutely. So I started in marketing as corporate marketing for 15 years. I spent 7 years as a marketing consultant, and I burned out. I mean, I was just working so many hours, like a lot of solopreneurs. And being in the service-based, if you're not working, then you're not making money. And when you're with your family, you feel guilty you're not working. And when you're working, you feel guilty that you're not with your family, even though the whole point of that was to spend more time, have more flexibility. And so I decided I was going to go back to school. I was at this pivot point in my life. I was going to go back to school. Did all the soul searching and decided I wanted to be an interior designer. And I talked my husband into allowing me to take one class. I say allowing, like I couldn't just say I'm taking a class, but I'm like, I just want class. Well, 3 years later I had a degree. At that point I'd already worked for 2 very large— or one small and one large architecture firm— and was working for my third architecture firm. I went on to teach at the school where I went. And taught a number of classes. And the one thing I realized is there was sort of a disconnect coming from the corporate world and even working as a consultant for a lot of, you know, medium-sized, large companies. There was kind of a big disconnect in this realm, in this new world I was in. There were a lot of solopreneurs that weren't able to really grow beyond themselves, and some choose not to, and and that's okay. But there were a lot of other ones that were just struggling with that whole burnout and how do I, you know, I went into business for myself so that I could have more flexibility so that I could, you know, create, you know, income, create a business, but now I'm just exhausted and I don't know what I'm doing or I don't know how to do it. And we weren't teaching that in school. So I had taught a couple of classes and realized that not only was I not able to share everything I wanted to share with students 'cause they can only take in so much at one time, but also that, you know, they didn't have necessarily that wisdom to be able to know the questions or ask the questions at that point. So what could we do down the road? And so I really started looking at how do we educate people beyond the college level. And when I had gone into interior design, there were no resources like that. Now there are a lot of resources like that, but at the time, a lot of people were holding on to their secrets and not sharing how they got started, how to start a business in this industry. And so that was kind of how Behind the Design was born. And we eventually moved into— evolved into helping and offering marketing services for a lot of businesses within this realm. So we help interior designers, architects, construction, that whole design to construction industry and how you grow your business. And that's kind of how we were born.

Excellent. Now, you've— sounds like you've gone full circle from doing the marketing to the design, now back helping them to do the marketing. Now, you mentioned that you're passionate about helping businesses business owners, you know, grow through, through education. Talk a bit about, about the importance of, of, you know, focusing on education when you are a, you know, a new business, uh, or a solopreneur that really has a passion for a hobby but, but wants to turn that into a profitable business. Where does education lie in that?

Education is huge. I think that one thing in my early career days I, when I, especially when I was working for corporate, I didn't do a very good job of educating myself. The one nice thing about it, I didn't take an active role in it, let's put it that way. The nice thing about corporations is that there is money for training and there is money to send you to conferences and to, um, you know, to purchase a book if you need a book or, or whatever resources. And so that was available to me and I did take advantage of that. But when I went out on my own, I thought, oh well, I know how to do all this. You know, I've done this. Well, what— there were things I forgot. I forgot I didn't realize I didn't have access to. Like, I didn't have access to entire IT department. I didn't have access to someone that updated my website. I had to learn HTML. I was like, what? You know, there were a lot of things that I had no idea. I had no idea about the bookkeeping and the finance and that aspect of it. And so I think as business owners and people that are moving into that, one of the biggest things is, is understanding that there are a lot of different aspects of business. And what we do is we end up creating a job. That's what I had done. I had created a job for myself, and a really hard one, by the way, instead of, you know, I thought, oh well, I could have flexibility, I could do this and this. Yeah, but again, when you weren't working, you weren't making money. So we have a program in Hobby to Profitability, and that kind of was built out of how do you go from I, you know, I want to start a business too, or I've been running this business for 3 years, 5 years, 6 years, whatever, and I'm exhausted. How do you actually build that into something larger than just you? And I think that education is a huge part of that, of constantly educating yourself. And I always call it stealing other people's homework. That's basically what you're doing when you're, you know, reading books or listening to podcasts. You're stealing someone else's homework. They're giving you the answers. And so it's It's really important to kind of listen to those things and think, okay. And another, it's important to ask for help. That was another thing I learned along the way. It's okay not to know something and it's okay to go out and ask someone else for that help. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I love, I love the stealing the other people's homework. I love that, that comparison that's there. So I'm going to ask you, how do you go from hobby to profitability? Like, what do you want?

We start— oops. Yeah, we start with mindset. Okay. If your mind is not in the right place, and I'm not a woo-woo girl, I'm just not. And so when I really started looking at, um, this whole thing about energy and my mindset and how my childhood impacted today and some of the things I went through, it really— I actually, my nice logical brain was like, wait a minute, this is starting to make some sense. And so how we were raised, we don't really think about necessarily, but some of the things that we were taught, for instance, I was told, don't talk. I always got in trouble, always got in trouble, and I'd have to write on a piece of paper, I will not talk in class, I will not talk in class, I will not talk in class, over and over. And then I would go home and I would get in trouble for that. Well, it turns out that communication is huge. And now when I started networking as, an adult, I was really nervous to go talk to people. I didn't have a problem when I was in the first grade. Why did all of a sudden I have this problem? Because I was, I was told don't talk in class. And it's like, okay, no, that's not helping me. Now, things like your parents fighting over money gives you that scarcity mindset. And all of a sudden you're worried about sharing your knowledge through content because you're so afraid there is limited resources, a limited number of customers. And those things are just not true. And a lot of the time our mindset isn't necessarily something we know. It's we're sabotaging ourselves unknowingly. We have some kind of thing. And so I think it's, that's the first step is really identifying what is holding you back and what does that look like? What's that big dream that you want to get to and really put your belief system and know that you can reach that. The next thing we talk— our second pillar is around systems and processes. Systems and processes, I know they're totally boring, but they're so important. Even if you're a solopreneur, establishing those systems and processes allows you to work more efficiently, to get more done. If you're the, the mom who wants to bring in extra money, so you decide you're going to open a business and, you know, sell some products or sell some services, You need to make sure that the time that you have available to work is working at the most efficient way you can and that you're doing the most important things. So we really talk about people. Who are you trying to reach? We also talk about the people within your organization. So if you're wanting to grow, those systems and processes will help you ensure that every customer gets the same experience, because everybody you hire will be following those processes and systems. And then the second thing is, you know, place, geographic. Where are people going to hear you? Where are they going to see you? What do you— who are you going to serve? And then we also talk about price. How do you establish your price? What are your rules around your price? And what does that look like from a revenue perspective? And then the last thing, which is promotions, you know, your marketing. I always tell everybody, you do not need to be everywhere. But wherever you are, you have to be consistent. So I think a lot of my clients come to me and they're so overwhelmed because there's so many options for like social media and it's like, well, which platform do I need? Well, where are your customers hanging out is the first question. And then wherever your customers are, that's the one platform you need to really focus on. And when you get really good at that, then it's okay to move to another one or another one, like, um, say your clients are on Facebook but you know that YouTube is also a good channel, then it's time to move to that one as well. But don't overdo it, just focus on where your audience is. So we really talk about— so that's pillar 2, is those systems and processes. And then pillar 3 goes into habits. How do you build the habits and the small changes within your business that really support everything before that. How do you create those habits that support the systems and processes that you've created? How do you know when to adjust something? Those habits are crucial. It's, you know, going back to the mindset of doing gratitude. I do my gratitudes every morning and say, okay, these are 5 things I'm grateful for. Some days those are, there's a cup of coffee in front of me, I am grateful for that cup of coffee. And then some days it's, I just brought on a new client that I'm really grateful for that. It can be big things, it could be small things, but just understanding and recognizing, seeing the things around you that are really, you know, quite special and things that you can be grateful for that maybe you weren't, didn't recognize or realize. And so those are our three pillars. And so we go really in depth into kind of talking about that and we try to keep everything. And I think when we start looking at a business in a, little different light that this is something, a separate entity from yourself, then it's a little bit easier than step back and saying, okay, what is the best thing for the business? Not necessarily me, but for the business. It's really important. It's like, you know, when you go to sit down and do your resume, it's really hard to do. You forget all the great things you've done. If you sat down and did your best friend's resume, you'd be like, oh yeah, you've done this and you've done this and you've done this and you're awesome. It's a lot easier to do that. And so that goes back to that mindset. If we they can separate a little bit and think about the business as its own entity, that also helps.

Wow, that's a lot. There's a lot of steps in there. Now, if you're listening to this right now, you may be at the point where you're thinking, you know, I want to start a business. And in that case, oh, these are all the great things that are, you know, I have to do. What would you say to people who, you know, they've started the business, they've been grinding away at it, they're feeling that they're not making any progress, you know, Would your recommendation be that you just approach it like you are starting over and just start at the beginning? Or, or what should you do to figure out what you need to focus on now to actually get out of that rut?

I think it's important to step back for a second and really look at what is working and what isn't working. I know that even in my own business, we often think, oh, we should be doing this. But in reality, that may not be the right thing for the business. Social media is a perfect example of that. You might be on several different, um, platforms, and maybe one of those platforms is just not working for you. It might be time to change that strategy. I've seen a, a lot of our clients come to us and they don't necessarily have the strategy, or they keep moving the strategy. And I think that's really important to understand is as a business, you should have a core strategy of what you're going to do as far as the business. And if something in there isn't working, then let's just call that duck a duck and let's move on. And so how you do that— and that's a really hard thing, especially when you're starting a business and you have put all your passion into it. It can be so hard to step back and go, hold on, this is not serving us. Why are we putting energy toward this if it's just not serving the business? And, you know, that can break down into the finance, that could break down into your marketing, that could break down and even into your people that you hire or contractors you hire. Are they delivering what they promised to deliver? Is that serving you? And so that goes across your entire business. But taking that step back— and this is actually a perfect time for that because right now You should be making those plans for next year. And we just went through this in our own company of evaluating, okay, what really went well this last year and what didn't really do well? And let's take those things that didn't do well and let's focus more on the things that went well and how can we expand that. And I think that can kind of be a little bit of a soul-searching thing.

Now, something you said there at the end that piqued curiosity in me was when you look at your business and the things that didn't go well, when do you determine that there's a need to put energy towards the things not going well to improve them or just get rid of them?

I'm sorry, repeat that again. Just to make sure I got it.

Yeah, for sure. So let's say you're looking back at your business and you're like, okay, well, these are the things in the business that are doing really well. And here's 2 or 3 things that just, they're not not serving us well, they're not doing well. When do you decide, do I focus energy to try to make those things do better, or is it just better to just not do them, get rid of them, and use that energy on the good things?

I think that is a really important thing in the sense of, okay, this isn't working. Why is it not working? Do I just scrap that all together? No, not necessarily. You don't necessarily want to do that. Maybe it could be— and, and we know this in marketing, we do a lot of testing in marketing. This headline to this headline or this offer to this offer. We test a lot of things. And I think you really have to be honest on, is this working? You know, in all honesty, sometimes it's your gut. Does your gut feel like— and do you feel like this is something that really, you know, in your heart that this is going to work? That this just needs some massaging and changes and you know it's going to work versus, you know, this is really exhausting for me. I don't get energy from it. It's taking a lot of our work and it's not producing. It's got to go. And so I think you have to ask those questions of yourself of how do I really feel about this and how, you know, what is that momentum? You know, at the end of the day, you really also have to understand your customers. If something isn't working, why isn't it working? Have you even asked, you know, people that maybe went through that buying cycle but didn't actually purchase? Have we gone back to them and said, hey, why didn't you purchase? What was your hangup or what, you know, what made you not purchase? Those are some of the answers that you really need when you understand your audience better. Then you can say, okay, we know this program and this strategy is working. We just need to tweak these things and we'll have a better close rate versus if you go back to the customers and realize, okay, this product, it just was not what they wanted. It wasn't— didn't meet their needs. Why did it not meet your needs? At that point, you have to decide, what energy do I put into making it meet people's needs versus let's scrap it and start over?

Great advice. Now, one of the things that I like to focus on a lot with clients is that customer experience, the journey they go through in the business. What do you do at Behind the Design to make a really great customer experience? Is there anything you can share that's unique or something you've been trying to do that's working really well?

One thing that we were doing and that we've really started putting some effort in here recently is what does that onboarding look like? And then what does that communication look like ongoing? And I'll give you an example of that. We brought somebody on last spring and we were doing their Instagram. And it was one of those things where they were like, okay, here's our accounts, go do it, we don't want to be part of it. And we realized really quick that that was just not a good relationship, and we were on the verge of possibly firing them as a client because it was not a good relationship. But we took a step back and we're like, okay, what's going on here? And it— and in defense of them, they were so busy, they just wanted this to be taken care of. They had other— they had their own clients to take care of. They didn't want to worry about this. But when we went back to them and said, hey, we really think it's beneficial for you as well as us if we just added every month a 30-minute meeting and for us to talk through everything that's going on, what's coming up, and then we can work together and develop what happens for the following month. So we have a standing meeting, um, every single month the first week, and then we really talk about what's going on this month, what do you need to make sure you're taking pictures of, filling us in on, sharing with us for the following month. And that has helped the relationship just immensely, having that open communication where they're like, oh yeah, we're going to this event, and oh, we have this job we're finishing. You know, that just open communication. And then every week we'll be— we're able to go, okay, these things went out. We schedule all of our, all of our posts so they can see that we have the entire schedule outlined for them. But if something pops up, that communication's open. It's like, hey, this just popped up, we won this award, can we move what you're planning on doing Friday? Can we move this award in there instead and move that, you know, to a later week? And so it really opened up. And so when we started looking at how do we onboard people, and even though they're coming to us to relieve their workload, we still want to make sure that communication is is absolutely key, and that at any given point they know what we're doing and we know what they're doing as it affects their marketing.

That's great, that's great. You're kind of meeting them where they're at, what they need there. Now, what would be something that you see consistent— consistently that, that entrepreneurs and solopreneurs are doing that you would be considered a mistake, uh, that's really hindering what, you know, their potential growth? What's, what's a common thing you see, uh, presently?

Having— feeling like they have to do it all, and in the same regards, being— having a perfection issue. We— a lot of our designers have— I've seen this in students as well, that they think they have to be perfect, and you don't. But asking for help and realizing you do not have to touch everything, you can There are consultants, there are freelancers, there are companies like yours and mine that will help clients with building out their marketing. There are bookkeepers that are really good at their job. There are CPAs really good at their job. Whatever those areas of weakness that you have, I would start there. Look at the things where you're really struggling and ask for help in those areas. And it's okay that you don't know everything. I'm not great at the bookkeeping standpoint. I, I would let a pile of stuff and I wouldn't enter it into QuickBooks, and then I'd get behind and then I'd get overwhelmed, and that's not good. Well, you hire somebody, guess what? Becomes a lot easier because they can focus their attention on that versus you focusing the attention on it. And all that leads to when you feel like you, you have to do everything just leads to that burnout.

Great advice. Now, you like to work primarily with interior designers and creative entrepreneurs, correct? Yes. So if you are a creative entrepreneur or an interior designer and they want to know how you can help them, how to contact them, or how to contact you, where can they do that and what can you offer them?

Our website is behindthedesignco.com, and that is also our handle on LinkedIn, Instagram, um, YouTube, and Pinterest. We just got hacked on our Facebook, so our Facebook has disappeared. So anybody listening this, if you're using Facebook to be, um, as a business, make sure you pay to get verified. It is important. Then, and so that's where you can find us. We have a lot of educational resources, some free, some classes, but then we also list out our services and can really help you with mostly digital. But a lot of our designers need help as well around developing their package, their, their sales package, and how to present themselves and branding and their strategy.

Excellent. Now I got one final question we're going to wrap up with here. Is there a tool that you have found in business that you use, an online tool that has revolutionized what you do, uh, in any aspect of your business that you could share?

There are actually quite a few, but, um, one that really helped us was Slack. And I know that seems kind of silly, but with Slack, um, we are located, um, my team is kind of all over the place. We can always huddle. We can always just send messages. You don't have to necessarily check email all the time, but it really helped with our internal communication of, hey, do you got this? Do I have this? And that sort of thing. So with my marketing manager, we huddle every day, even if it's for 5 minutes of, I'm working on this, you're working on that. That by far helped us as far as making sure that we're not duplicating efforts, we're being the most efficient, and then we're answering our clients' problems and questions or making sure we're serving them correctly.