Latest / Really Renée / Ep. 13 - In The Messy Middle with Bethany Adams Interiors

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Ep. 13 - In The Messy Middle with Bethany Adams Interiors · Really Renée

• RR EP 13 The Messy Middle with Bethany Adams2: Every single time a stranger, every single time someone says, What do you do? And I say, I'm an interior designer, the response 100% of the time is, that sounds so fun. I would totally be a designer if I weren't a, you know, lawyer, dental hygienist, doctor. Like, that sounds amazing. And it's like, and I always say, like, it can be, and like, Ten percent of the time it is amazing and fun and I love my clients and I love creating for them and I love the finished product. But like that's ten percent of it. And then ninety percent of it is like, you know, logistics and admin and you know, dealing with difficult challenging people and really putting out fires nonstop. We're dreamers. Don't care what other people say. We're dreamers. I would love for you to just kind of give a little bit of information about who you are, where you're situated, your market, what you do. Give me a little background data for anyone that doesn't know you. I am Bethany Adams. I run Bethany Adams Interiors in Louisville, Kentucky. I've been an interior designer for about 20 years. Like you, I am NCID Q certified, and with the Kentucky Board of Architecture, my state's licensing board. And he's a Yeah. And I didn't know that. I thought I feel like we bonded over this at design campus. I knew that you had your NCID Q, but I didn't know that that was through the Board of Architecture. It is in Kentucky. I think so interesting. Different in different states. but yeah, here in Kentucky it's through the Board of Architecture. this is something that I thought, you know, when I was in design school twenty years ago, I was like, I'm you know, I I do when I do things, it's like I want to follow the rules and like do it the right way. That's just the kind of person I am. So like I thought I'm gonna graduate, I'm gonna work for two years under a licensed architect, I'm gonna take the NCIDQ, I'm gonna become, you know, licensed or certified, whatever. as an interior designer and eventually I'm gonna start my own business and that credential is gonna like open doors. It's gonna matter, right? People totally people are gonna care. And then cut to like you know, about ten years into my career, we moved to Louisville. moved with my now ex-husband and then three year old to Louisville from Chicago and went out on my own about a year into living in Louisville for the first time in Chicago. I had worked for other designers with architects. And I was like, yeah, this is gonna matter a lot. Everyone's gonna see how different I am because I'm bringing this to the table. And no one cares. Clients do not care that I am NCIDQ certified. It's then one of those hard lessons for me to learn because like I do value it and I'm glad I did it. For myself, but it it they really don't care. They're like, that's nice. I've kind of like, that's nice, but like what you know, what kind of draperies are you gonna pick out for us? There's totally disconnect. Not with all clients, like some clients do really fully appreciate that, you know, I draw the plans and can move walls and things like that. But then there are other clients or potential clients mostly who who are just like, Great, good for you. Like, that's not why we hired you. so yeah, I feel like the journey of being a design business owner has been really one of humility. And like I thought I was I was doing all the things, checking all the boxes, gonna have this competitive edge and then finding out that like, nope, those kinds of things really don't matter to to the end user in the way that I thought they did. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that 'cause I on another episode I talked about credentialing and my opinions about credentialing. And similar to you, I you know, I'm a first generation college student. And so I it was like a professional goal of mine to go to university and then also to have my N C I DQ. And similarly I was like, this credential means everything. People are gonna care. And Not once has a client been like, so are you in scientific need to double check? Nobody cares. Yep. And it's like, I feel like in a to a certain extent they do care in that they can see that we can do the work right, but they don't know what that's called or why it's important, or how it's different maybe than someone else who is also doing that work but isn't credentialed. Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. I yeah, it's just an interesting point in the industry because I feel like there's just a general lack of education about what designers do, what credentialing means, like what it me what is the difference between you know, an interior designer or somebody that sits mostly on furnishings or soft goods, more on the decorator side. And I think in your not to speak for you, but one of the things that I think is so special about you is like your design. Aesthetic is this like beautiful marriage of really architecturally defined spaces, but yet very whimsical and beautiful, aesthetically driven spaces, much more so like than any of my projects. Your projects have like a level of whimsy. I just mean your point of view is very specific. And I I love that. And I and I think that you are somebody that has such a distinct style. Like when you look at your portfolio, there is like it's like this is Bethany Adams. Like you can see your point of view. And so I and I talk like I said, I talk about this on a different episode about like me, my business model isn't necessarily a distinct design aesthetic. I my goal was more so to like service this market and do what I had to to stay here and be profitable. So It's just a different vehicle, but your your aesthetic is so distinct. And I think it's I could see how maybe an like a potential customer could come to you based on the aesthetic because you have such aesthetically driven projects. And then they like kind of miss the the actual amount of architectural work that you actually do behind that, if that makes sense. Because everyone's looking at the after. Photo, right? And unless you go back and put the before side by side, you're like, that entire wall wasn't there, or that, you know, or these beams weren't there. Or yeah, this millwork wasn't there. Yeah, it's impossible to look at it without like studying the blueprints before and after. but you know, you made a good point about your own work being or starting your own business being about like Serving your area and being profitable and mine being very whimsical. And I feel like that is that's an important difference because the whimsy doesn't necessarily pay the bills in the same way. And like I feel like at times I may have sacrificed, you know, profitability for artistry in a way that, like, yes, I'm I'm proud of my portfolio, and I do feel like fulfilled in that way. But is not necessarily hasn't always been profitable. Sure. Yeah. I get that. I guess I'm I'm curious, like, so then in terms of where your business is at right now, how like tell me about your team, your studio, like where you feel like you're at in business. and I'll preface with like I've had good years and bad years, grown and have not grown. And so we all have ridden the wave of business and it's Challenging. So I'm just curious, like, where do you feel like you're at right now? Right now, I feel like sort of at the beginning on the cusp of some another level. You know what I'm saying? So, like the previous two years were they were just bad for our business, I think, right? We were all riding high after COVID and the phones were ringing off the hook, and I had like a million small projects that were just, you know. eating up all my time and making me miserable. And then things got really slow. And that slow period sort of dovetailed naturally with another business I decided to start, which was the White Glove receiving and storage business. a a service that you know, I leaned on heavily as a designer in Chicago, where big city, lots of amazing Designers doing high-end work, and then lots of support services for those designers exist in Chile. And then moving to Louisville, I realized pretty early on that they didn't exist here. And but at the beginning of my, you know, business in Louisville, I had a little one, and then eventually I had a second child. So I was like sort of dabbling, honestly, for the first five years in design. you know, I do a little project here, a little project there. And then it wasn't till you know, my little one went to kindergarten three years ago that I really was like full-time designer and trying to do bigger projects. And I realized I can't do the kind of work that I did in Chicago that I aspire to do here without this service of white black receiving. And And like I tried everything. I tr you know, I tried so many square pegs and tried to fit them in and make it work, and it just wasn't working. So I didn't set out to do this during the lull in the design business, but it sort of naturally happened that I decided to start my own white glove receiving company with the idea that it would service my business eventually when things picked up. and other designers in the area because you know we didn't have anything like it. So so the past couple of years, a long way to say like the past couple of years have been really, really slow for me in design. And part of me was in a total panic about that. You know, there were many Totally many many group Texts with my designer friends being like, is this it? Will I never work again? You know, like, is the phone never gonna ring for like anything I wanted to do, also. Right. because there's always somebody who wants something from you, but it's like, in, you know, do I wanna do that? Is it gonna actually make money? The answer is usually no. so yeah, so it's like, I don't know, but in the meantime, I'll Try to build this business and see how that goes. And then eventually, you know, the phone did ring with one amazing project. And and then, you know, a couple months ago the phone rang again with another amazing project. So I sort of feel like things okay, it's happening. Like I'm like slowly turning a corner. And if I'm like wildly impatient though too, and I'm ready for that corner to be like in my rear view. Yeah. Yeah. I'm ready for this warehouse business to be profitable. I am ready for these two projects to be like photographed and in my portfolio, even though we're like nowhere near anything like that. And I'm like, I can see it. I can see way off in the distance, like feeling like, okay, I did it. But I'm not there yet. I'm I'm in the middle of it. So you found hope is what I hear you saying. Like you you know a little hope. Whereas maybe like a little while ago you were like, I don't know if there's any hope. I might be dead in the water. Yeah, this is it. This is it. Nobody's calling and nobody wants to hire me for the kind of project I want to do. and you know, I I mentioned like yeah. Turning down smaller things. And that was also really scary. But I was at that point where I was like, I cannot do 12 to 20 $5,000 projects a year. Like, I can't do it anymore. It's exhausting. They're always it always, you know, it's just like it never goes well when you have these little tiny low-cost projects. Like interior design is a luxury service and It always goes better when it's like one big project with a big budget. It just is better for everybody. so I got like really aggressive in this time too about saying no to things. And then I also, you know, was terrified myself with that because I was like, what have I done? I was too aggressive, like, but you know, everybody says you have to you have to say no now so you can say yes later and I think that really is true, and that's what I keep telling myself as I'm like, wait, wait for things to come to fruition. Like you have to I was aggressive and that's scary, but it is paying off. I'm just impatient for it to have paid off already. Yeah, and I think it's, you know It's for sure it's scary to say no, especially when you're at the bottom, like in the valley. Easier when you're in the peak and you're like, I don't have the margin. I can't do that. Yeah, exactly. You know, but when you're in the valley and then you're saying no, that's even more hard. And so it's like then you kind of question at least I've had moments where I've questioned like my sanity and like, was that the right move? because we have had seasons where we're like this project Could is probably not ideal, but it will keep the lights on. And so and that's important. Yeah. That's the important point too that you just brought up keeping the lights on. So before I started the white glove service, I was working as a designer out of my carriage house. So like over my garage. And that was a big, big step up from when I was working in the corner of the guest bedroom in the house. You know, like I was like, this is amazing. I have my own Space. It's 400 square feet. It's luxurious. it wasn't, it wasn't luxurious at all. But it felt like it compared to like a desk in the corner of my house. and then I then I bought this building that's the warehouse building. And part of it, part of the appeal of this building one is it's five minutes from my house. and the five minutes from my kids' schools. And the other thing is that there was like space, it's like a literal warehouse, and then on the front was a sort of smaller warehouse that I was like, this could be, this could be a studio, right? And so I I thought like I'll do the warehouse first, I'll get that up and running, and then I'll like rehab the front and make it my studio. And then I got carried away as as we often do. And and I redid the whole thing, which honestly You know, I couldn't have done it any other way because like for the first year of the warehouse business, which we've been in business now for thirteen months, like it was me back there receiving everything, you know. Yeah opening boxes, moving furniture. Like I couldn't have done it from home, even though it's five minutes away. 'cause someone has to be here all the time to receive. So, anyway, so I I you know, went I went overboard. as as we do and design this beautiful studio you see behind you. And lovely. And it really has been amazing and great. But then it's like all of now there's the pressure to meet the overhead. And like I'm splitting this building basically with my two businesses. A brand new business that is not yet profitable in the back, although almost breaking even, which I think is pretty good for one year. Amazing. Yeah. And then like my other business, which I didn't work for like nearly two years. So it's like, it's it's stressful. You know, even when I see money in the accounts, I'm s like you know, every time I I fill flat fee and so like every time I get a big flat fee, I just like watch that number go down and get like more and more anxious. And I'm like, in November I'm gonna have to start to panic and like Hope the phone rings again and hope the dream project comes around. So sometimes I'm like, why did I do this to myself? Why am I not just in my carriage house, like with two great projects and like not stressing out? But I don't know. I also really love having a fancy studio. I know that's not for everyone, but it is for me. Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, same. I yeah, you know, I I've had seasons where, you know, a couple of years our market downturned a lot same time yours did. I think it was like post election just craze. Everyone's exactly flipping out about tariffs and money. Yeah, the stock market. Yeah. For sure. So we all stalled. normally our market's very insulated and it just wasn't. And so yeah, I had to choose. I was like locked in a I'm locked in a, you know, five year rental agreement. Yeah. And I had to choose between rent and my team. And so I had to lay off my team for a period of time. And it was just like heartbreaking. You know, people in Hood River, our like rental costs are exorbitant. So like my rental for my studio plus the warehouse below us is like close to seven thousand dollars a month. And so you're just like, This is this is real life here. So it's real life. And I definitely have had those days too where I'm just like What am I doing? Was this worth it? Yeah. but it I think it's funny because you and I met at design camp and I was like soft launching procurement at that time. Right. And then it's been fun to watch you kind of dive more into it and like have more of a front facing thing. And I ours our procurement strategy really was just like there's no one in Hun River doing it similar. to you in your area. But I didn't create anything that was public facing. I just like added it to our projects. And so when the market downturned, yeah, we we went more public with the fact that we have a warehouse and do receiving. And so I was coming to you. I was like, what do you do for this? How are you doing this? It's so it's been fun to just kind of see the evolution of both of our businesses over the last few years. And like as we're trying to like figure it out, because I think you know, I think there's just not a lot of resources about these types of things. I think, you know, design camp was great. I learned a lot of information in there. I'm not I won't say anything negative about it. I don't, I think the experience was amazing and it was great to meet other designers and have community through that. But there's like random sectors and sections of the market and business that I'm like, where is this information? No one is you know anything about this. College, they didn't yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of designers are starting to take the more boring logistics parts into their own hands as you know, we realize it's kind of critical to our business and other people aren't doing it. Especially like, you know, I'm in Louisville, Kentucky, which is not a big city. It's you know, mid-market and you're in Hood River, which is small, and it's like we're not in places that are generally served by these supporting industries in the way like designers in New York or Chicago or LA have options for basically everything. and that's been a struggle for me and my business here in Louisville. Like I s you know, I struggle with finding, you know, contractors I want to use again. I struggle with finding like you know just like I have a good team of like people I will use for like wallpaper and paint and mill work. but I don't know. I still I still struggle with finding the right people who I are like of the caliber that I got spoiled by in Chicago, you know? Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard because I think, you know, when you are more in that architectural side of design. you do need like a good sub list. You need a roster of really good referrals because that is part of what you're doing. And so 100%. especially if you get into the procurement side, because then if you're procuring materials, then your hands are even more kind of on that end result. And so yeah, we I mean we it took years to get there. Honestly, that's like, you know, I am now like My partner is a general contractor 'cause I'm like, ha ha ha. That's how I roped you into like doing all of this. That's the dream. Honestly, you're living the dream. Like everybody wants to be with either a G C or like a marketing guy. Like somebody who can support in some way, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's hard, man. It's really hard. I don't know if you've had This experience, but another thing I've struggled with in Louisville is that it's getting better now. There are so many more designers here than there were ten years ago. I moved here like twelve years ago, who are doing great work here. But it's not uncommon for me, like I have my clients pick their own contractor for obvious reasons. And and so often it's somebody I've never worked with before or met and And often they've never worked with a designer who is a designer like we are designers, right? Yes. They've worked with someone who's like, you know, asked them to put five paint swatches on the wall or you know, done things like that. But they haven't worked with somebody who's like, Okay, how are you gonna frame this wall so that we can you know, hide the plumbing bent? You know, yeah, totally. And and Off off I found that most of the time they're like, this is great. I I love working with a designer. But once in a while, or even if they think it is great, they are not they don't totally understand that like they're supposed to communicate with us and not the client. And so like I'm in a project now where I'm like the client's like texting me, like, they framed this and what do you want to do? And I'm like, Well why are you texting me about this client? You know, like why un I wish I had known that the electrician was gonna be there last Tuesday. Like this is all news to me. And so I think they're just like not used to that relationship, which make can make things challenging on projects. You Yeah, I'm curious in your process, do you like when you so a couple questions come to mind. Number one being, do you Tell your clients to go find their general contractor on their own, like completely vet them? I do. I, you know, the last time I recommended somebody, or I didn't even recommend them, I was like, here's the name of someone I've been thinking about working with, and then they hired that someone and then fired him, and then the project was delayed a year. So after Yeah. After that, I was like, I'm not even gonna say that, because like really I don't want to have my stamp of approval. You can't control somebody else, you know, unless you're literally subbing out, right? Like if it's a small decorating job and I'm subbing out the electrician and, you know, the mill worker and maybe even the plumber because it's like a you know, there's only like a wet bar or something. then, yeah, but then the client like never has to know who those people even are, right? 'Cause it's like under the umbrella. But for a whole home remodel, which is the bulk of my business, because I work mostly in historic homes, you know, a contractor is is a big part of it. And their contract is with the client, not with me. that's how it is in Kentucky. I think it's different in other places. But I, yeah, I really do not want to insert myself into that relationship because it can go wrong and I don't want The clients to be like, your guy, you know, screwed up. Yeah. For many years, it's interesting because like my business model is one that grew significantly in our area. Sorry, my nose is so itchy. our area, my business grew because of general contractors and Because I'm in a market that just like is so pragmatic, people generally don't feel like they need design services. Right. I knew that my next bet to kind of create a need for myself was through general contracting support. And so I was really heavily aggressive with like who are the general contractors in our area. For sure they must be stressed, for sure they don't have design service help. They're building custom homes and they're doing this without designers help. So I would like vet them by by making them come into my office and just being like, Hey, I'd love to like learn about your business and your processes. I'm gonna be honest, I totally would lie up front and be like, I've got a large roster of projects that I need to like be able to refer to. General contractors too. And sometimes that was the case, but sometimes it was just like they wouldn't make time for me unless I said that. And so but I knew once I got them in the door and I could be like, let's talk about what we do. We don't just ask for five paint swatches on the wall, we actually help you get decisions made from your client's side quickly, we make the process efficient, all these things. And I knew that if I could sit in front of them and have that conversation, that they would probably turn a corner and I could ask them a lot of questions about their process to where they would feel comfortable sort of like I would feel comfortable kind of figuring out like, do I think this would be a good fit? And so that took many years, but then as we went on, for whatever reason, our team just got more and more integrated around the estimation and budgeting part of it. And so Regardless of which is hard. That's like the hardest super hard. Yeah. Yeah, because our general contractors generally are really bad at it in the area. And I don't know if that's like universally true. Or, you know, they we just have a lot of general contractors that are like, I just want to be time and materials. And we've got people that are like, I only have four hundred thousand dollars in cash. So time and materials is not gonna work for me until I know if I'm at four hundred or not. And so So we ended up getting heavily immersed in the budgeting and estimation side, which on our side like helped to push the sales towards us, obviously, because we had control over a budgetary allowance. but it it did get us like into bed with general contractors regardless of whether or not we wanted to be. And I don't know if that's like the right move or not, but it's I think it has helped us maintain control on our projects and be able to just be like in terms of the the kind of the hierarchy of the team, most of the time we sit at the top, regardless of whether or not the general contractor is like, you know, technically passing through more money in their business than we do. They like they still kind of hold us in the position of first player because of the process. But it is significantly more stressful. So I don't know if that's like better or not. I don't know. but I felt like you. Like there's just not great resources. I have to hold people accountable. I cannot get more design work and I cannot help our clients get their projects done if I'm not like figuring out how to build this bridge here. And so that was really tricky for sure. Hey, so if you're finding this content helpful or informative. I would so appreciate if you could consider subscribing to us and leaving a comment or a review just so that we can reach more people, reach more designers, and help elevate the design community. Thanks for tuning in. And I I don't know if you have run into this too. I mean, talking about budgeting and estimation. you sort of touched on this before, but like the kind of design work I do, like it's not new construction, it's generally renovations of existing, usually. historic over a hundred year old homes. and what I have run into, and then I do some pretty weird stuff. You know, I do some like things that are not off the factory floor, right? Everything is custom. Every every bit of millwork is always custom. you know, I'm constantly trying to figure out a way to do it in a way that is less custom and I haven't figured it out yet because old homes are, you know, they're tricky. And I also think like it looks wrong sometimes, you know? Like it looks like you went to I'm not gonna say a brand, but big box brand cabinets and put them in a beautiful historic home. And it's just wrong. So long story short, I like I do things that are maybe You know, I'm not I'm not inventing anything. This is what I'm always telling contractors to. Like, I'm not the first person to do this. I'm I'm probably the hundredth designer in the world to think about doing things this way. Like, obviously all the major markets are ahead of me, right? but it's the first time it's ever been done here in global sometimes, or by this contractor, and they have a hard time like estimating. what those costs are gonna be. And I have found that contractors will like wildly overestimate things because it's so unusual or unique or it's not again, it's not really unusual from like our perspective. It's just not what's done. It's just not what's been done. They're not used to it. They're used to going to like this tile store in town and that cabinet place in town and this flooring place. And like I don't use any of those places. I use, you know, the designer trade resources that people are using in New York and Paris and Chicago and LA and like doing them here. Do you have like in your contracts or clauses anywhere that say like you're not you d you design based on what is historically appropriate and accurate of the home and that you can't be held responsible for maintaining a budget when you're not a general contractor? Maybe I should. and your proposal maybe. Yeah. Or something like not may I could see I think as a Yeah, I do always talk through it at the beginning and I'm like, you know, we're gonna we're gonna go through this process and we're gonna see where it lands and then we're you know, we can talk about places to pull back. Like that's sort of part of the process. yeah. It's tricky. It's tricky. I before I got into more budgeting and estimation, I I mean, we would encounter that all the time too. And it just was like such a weird it's a weird friction point because you're like, How am I responsible for being held to how a general contractor prices? But the client still expects you to like somehow magically know. And right in our market too, it's very similarly like anything that's new or different or non standard, it comes with like a a budget number that you're just like, what is this? generally our general contractors like underbid everything, which actually then causes problems like then causes problems. And so we started asking for like allowances up front from them. And so like, you know, it wasn't uncommon for me on a three million dollar custom home. for the allowance package or the appliance package to have an allowance of like twelve thousand dollars. And you're like, wait, what? You're like, that's one sub zero for Is that all we're doing? Is that like and so you're like, okay, wait. So how did you arrive at three million with these allowances? I just I literally just had a project where the project, it's a remodel of a hundred year old home. It's a million dollar remodel. And I and we were brought late into the project at framing. And I asked the general contractor for his allowances. The interior finishes. So we're talking lighting, cabinetry, tile, flooring, countertops, the entire package on that project was sixty thousand dollars. It has two kitchens. And like four bathrooms. And I was like clients have no idea how much things cost because it's like that's a joke. And you're like, how did you get to a million then? Yeah, where is the million? That's what I wonder too. I'm like, again, I'm not a contractor, but I'm also like, How in the world is the number for, you know, this painting or that like, how are we getting to like thirty thousand dollars for this? Like I don't I don't get it. and then disc like not including things that are obvious, like, yeah, like what is the cost per square foot of that tile? 50 cents? Like Yeah. Well, it's like they're I mean, I'll name it. I feel like they put, you know, Home Depot estimate the budgetary allowances in these projects, and you're just like No this no and I I'm a believer in proportionality. So if your project warrants having materials from Home Depot, then I you will see me all day, every day, be like, Yes, do that. That's great. I don't I'm not saying that that's a bad move. Right. I just think proportionality wise, if you're gonna spend a million dollars on a project. You're ex like you're expecting something, right? Yeah. You're expecting a certain level of finish. Well you don't want a client to get to the end of a million dollar remodel and be like, it looks like I spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And so we're like everybody down the street has this same tile in their bathroom 'cause it's from 'cause it's from the big box store, right? Right. So we we came in on that project and I redid the allowances and I asked for an approval of an extra three hundred thousand dollars in interior materials and the general contractor was just like, What are you doing? Or the We're gonna talk about proportionality here and what we think is appropriate for this house and what's going on. And I had the conversation with the clients. I went through it with them and they were like, Okay, yeah, we agree. Here we'll increase the budget. And so that worked out well for us on that one. But I just was like, I don't know how we get here. I'm curious, do you With your general contractors then, do you encourage them to get like multiple estimates at least or something and like see how it pencils out or probably is so s so difficult either way. So difficult. And I will say, lately, so like part of my new aggressive push away from all these small projects is, you know, I I was working not exclusively, but I was working with a contractor who kept like sending me these small projects and I was like, this is great. Like I'm just, you know, great. More work. I need it. I was still pretty new to Louisville. And like, you know, neither my ex husband nor I were from here. Like we were just like coming in totally out of the blue. No connections. and so that seemed great. But then I started it just started to feel like, you know, he was sending me all the wrong All the projects were like to make his life easier, you know? Yeah, totally. Like yeah. And I was like, and none of these are things I would ever do. And like none of these people would ever hire me. Like they would not they just wouldn't. It was just like a mismatch. Like where your business is at now, how many people are on your team? Whether like maybe like what's on procurement or on like the white glove side and then on the design side. How many projects are you doing right this second? Yeah. So I will say like the the businesses are completely separate, business-wise and like physically separated by a wall. awesome. So yeah. So they're really separate, although there's overlap, obviously. so on the BAI side, it's me. I have a part-time drafts person and renderer now, which is amazing. And because, you know, drafting is tedious. And I've just gotten to the point where like I want to design it. I design everything in AutoCAD. That's the only way I can think about space. Totally. I need to be looking down at it from above, even furniture plans. Like I just need to see how it lays out. and then she's been amazing and like Doing all the elevations and then like the really tedious stuff of drawing setup. and I just hired someone. She like literally just started last week to do procurement. and by which I mean like the ordering for Bethany Adams interiors for these two projects. just the tracking, the ordering, the dealing, the admin, you know, that kind of stuff. So she's also just part-time. So I've got these two part-time ladies now. and in the warehouse, honestly, hiring has been an unforeseen struggle. Like I know we talked about this like a year ago, but just like for like physical laborers, people to open boxes, put furniture on shelves, like that has been more of a struggle than I ever thought it would be. We finally started working with the staffing agency and I feel like I'm way overpaying for what I'm getting, but at the same time, like I I personally, physically cannot be running back and forth to the warehouse every, you know, couple hours to accept huge deliveries of furniture and then unbox sofas by myself and inspect them. It was like like I just felt like a chicken with her head cut off. Like I'd be like, today I'm coming to work and I'm gonna work on like this design presentation all day. And then it would be like, get real. No, you're working in a warehouse all day. And so I just felt very torn. So we did eventually, like I said, work with this staffing agency and find like a decent human person to who wasn't on drugs, which is like way harder than I thought it would be. To bare minimum. That's how you know. Bare minimum. Like, my God, I don't know what's going on in the world, but it's alarming. find a great person who is like reliable and good and to do that work. And then we also just barely hired someone back there who is essentially the warehouse manager. So he is an even more competent individual who will both help open boxes and put furniture on shelves, but also like we are rolling out our delivery service after teasing that for about a year. We're like, okay, now we actually have the people, because like I had this delivery truck for like a year and I didn't feel like I didn't feel confident in our people that I decided to like send them to my clients' clients home. so now we do feel confident. We're gonna be rolling out delivery soon. And so we have the two of them back there. And you know, we'll probably hire a third part-time person for when it's a larger delivery. And I also have an operations, like a fractional COO of the White Glove business, who works remotely. She's in a different part of our state. And she has been amazing and, you know, invaluable and she really does like the big picture operations and billing people and making sure everything's running because our whole system is automated. so which sounds automatic, but it's also requires a lot of oversight to make sure like things don't go haywire, right? So she is in charge of that, thank God, because that's way above my pay grade. so it's like I sort of feel like things are just starting to click in white glove. I am also like filled with dread and anxiety about that, like people using us and like, am I are my storage rates too high? That's the feedback I'm getting. On the other hand, it's like it's a lot better situation than anything anyone else has going on here. So I'm like, we really, I really need a lot more clients this year for White Glove. Super anxiety inducing, because now I have like More people with higher salaries. Staff, yeah. Yeah. And the thing is it's, you know, chicken and the egg. I can't do the service I want to provide without great people. But in order to pay the great people, I need people to use the service and totally Yeah. It's it's it's I'm very anxious all the time. It's the end of that story. I mean, let's let's just like Keep every year just like checking in on anxiety levels, right? And seeing if that like changes at all. But I do feel Yeah. Like you know, I guess to that point, do you feel like at this juncture that the white glove side is the thing that keeps you up more at night than the interior side or what For sure. A hundred percent. Yeah. Right now Definitely. And it's like again, this is one of those things where I'm like, why did I do this to myself? Like what? What am I doing? I could be, you know, just enjoying these two great projects and not worried about this. And I guess what I'd be making so much more money because my overhead would be like fifty dollars a month. Sure. Or maybe But then you would do procurement on your projects and be like Now what? How am I sending this? Where am I sending this? Right. Which is yeah, but I was you're right. You are absolutely right. Because in order to do these bigger projects that are bigger, better projects, I needed this warehouse. yeah, so it it's it's that it's that point where I'm like, it's about to be amazing. Like I haven't really used the warehouse for my own projects yet. Because I've been working on this one project for a year. Like still nowhere near procurement. and I think that the the at the point when I can use the warehouse for my own projects to deliver the service that I want to, for my business to truly be considered luxury. then I will finally feel like I did it. It's working out. But I'm still I'm like months away from that. So it is really satisfying to be able to do that. Like pack up the warehouse of stuff for your own projects. yeah, because 90% of our warehousing is for our projects. So it's like we're we're on the flip side of that. And so yeah, I I find it very fulfilling to like have a crew of people that you can just like. Load up everything and then take it to a job site, install it, have it leave, have clients be happy and just be like, okay, yeah, this is this is incredible. So yeah, one of the unforeseen things in that that I learned, I just learned on a project actually a couple weeks ago that we did an install on, is the need to have a handyman on your on your crew when you do it. So we had like three different armoirs that got purchased on this project got put on the I won't say the trade vendor that they came from, but I would say it's Tell me later. Middle mark. Middle mark. all three had to be I mean, let me I don't know. It maybe your process is a little bit different in terms of how you do receiving and whatnot. So you might have caught it before I did, frankly. But we also we in forty eight hours. Yeah. Yeah, we got these the day before 'cause like they were already dil they were delayed and then it was like they came off a truck only to be loaded on a truck. Yeah, exactly. And so we all three had to have like literal adjustments beyond just like a little thing here or there. And I don't like in your case in procurement, if you get an item that is I wouldn't say they were damaged, like there wasn't anything broken on it. No. But we found that an issue in our in our warehouse. Because it's you to your point, it's not always damage. It's but like I got three dining chairs for a designer two weeks ago and two of the seats were green and one was white. And there was like nothing on the paperwork that said they should all be green or they should all be white. But I was like, this is clearly Odd. So yeah. You know, we said issue noted, and she got an email and she was like, Yeah, that's not right. So she could reach out to her vendor because you know you only have forty-eight to seventy-two hours most of the time to reach out to your vendor and get them to send you a new one. yeah, so stressful. This is the kind of thing that clients don't see, but it's like we're working like crazy to make sure that three armoirs are correct. Yeah. So we had one guy that literally had to plane down a a door on each arm mark. my god. like shave from one side zero to a sixteenth off from one side, for it to close and close nicely. And so I was like, I'm not gonna send this back. It's huge. And because it is you needed it that day. Yeah. And I'm not gonna like I Even if it I caught it at my warehouse, like I wouldn't send it back because it the logistics of that is crazy. And so I might have been able to like get it fixed at the warehouse, but sure. you know, I just the guys I bring literally have tools and they expect like you're gonna tweak and fine-tune all this until it's good for us to leave on a job site. It's so for sure. I just like that was one of the random things that I'm like, my gosh, I'm so glad I'm not just hiring movers. I really am hiring people that are competent carpentry. Yes. They know, you know, how to like look at a furniture piece, tweak things and get things leveled. Where do you find these magical people? That's I wanna know. Honestly, my Ann is still my contractor partner. So on I don't know. It's an he has great people. So it's like that solves a lot of problems for sure in my world. but it's it's pretty rare and I will admit that. so It my two cents is for anyone getting into procurement that's doing the deliveries on their job sites. Definitely find a guy and can like do a little thing. And even our guys, when we were there, the general contractor was like, Hey, do you mind hanging the bathroom mirrors? And do you mind this? And do you mind I'm like, No, we're here, we'll do it. We're definitely a a yes crew. So I'm like, Yeah, whatever you need, the guys are here. This is their hourly rate, we'll just do it. And so That's awesome. It worked out really well. But so then I guess it so then in your world, because you're you would I would say almost a ninety percent right of your procurement is other people's stuff. Coming to the warehouse. Yeah. Then I don't even know how what my question is. I just think that that's so cool that you're doing that. Cause not I mean, like I said, we don't we don't do that. So I know that in order for you to do that, you had to create this like really amazing proprietary software to like help track and do all of this stuff because again I can't even imagine the logistics. The logistics just on our projects is crazy. It's insane so then to like go beyond, like you said, to like open up other designer stuff, look at it. I'm thinking about the procurement services or sorry, the receiving companies that we've used in Portland when we've done projects there and their process and how you had to like create that from scratch. And I think that that is like Yeah. Amazing. I think you know, again, I built this business for me to use. And so I'm like, you know what I really want it to be? And I also like I had been using a mover as a receiving warehouse here, a same mover that every other designer here has been using. And the experience was Anywhere from like abysmal to catastrophic, depending on on the project. you know, like pieces just got lost, just disappeared in the warehouse and dirty, damaged, all the things. Dirt was here. Exactly. Dirty, so filthy. you know, I brought clients there one time to see a vintage table. I I have a lot of vintage in storage. And now it's all in storage here, actually with me in a whole separate area. And like, you know, called ahead and they were like, yeah, come at eleven, we'll have it ready. And then it was like took two hours standing there with my client before they pulled it out. And I was just like, This is this is terrible. I can't I can't work. Like, I'm so embarrassed right now. and but the other thing is they would, you know, we'd say, We want you to receive and inspect things and they just like wouldn't. They would not open boxes or I'd have to say, did you get that thing? Like it looks like it was delivered last week. And they'd be like, yeah, that's been sitting outside on the dock for since last week. And yeah, I'd be like, Outside in the outside? Like, that's crazy. Like I'm tr like I'm trying to order like really high-end pieces for my clients. That's sort of the kind of designer I am. Luxury. Like I can't have like a $10,000 sofa just sitting outside for a week. That's insane. So a big part of starting the warehouse for me was not just like a clean, dry, you know, video monitored, temperature controlled warehouse, which is like just that is above and beyond what the options were here. But totally like I wanted to be able to like know when it came, know when it was inspected, and see the pictures and, you know, essentially decide for myself if if it's damaged or not damaged or whatever. and just basically it all comes down to control. I feel like we as designers are control freaks, right? Like we just that's how sort of why we all get into it because we want to like shake space and control it. And then the more aspects of a project that we have direct control over, the better the project goes. 100%. Yeah. And like the more we give up to other people, that's when things go off the rails. I don't know. Single designer who isn't like super even like I'm messy and disorganized. If you saw my desk, you'd be like, yeah. But but like I don't know a single designer who isn't like organized in the sense of like knowing exactly what their project entails and all the pieces of like we are all super into those details, I think. And so for me having the software was about that control. And then another thing is this this other warehouse mover I was using, like They would send me a bill like every seven and three quarter weeks and one day. Like, and then the next time it would be like three months after the install, I'd get the storage bill. And I'd be like, there's no way I can how can I go back to my client three months after their install and be like, I just got this surprise bill for storage for your stuff. I can't. Yeah. So I ended up just like eating a lot of the costs of the storage. And that's something like we're struggling to communicate to designers here, most of whom have never worked anywhere besides Louisville, and so don't know what a real receiving warehouse experience is like. but they'll be like, this place is so much cheaper though. I don't know that I can, you know, justify the cost. And there's one thing which is like people really Designers here have a hard time understanding that they're not the ones who are supposed to bear the cost of right receiving storage and delivery. Like that's a cost that your client is supposed to pay. It's their furniture. It has to get into their home somehow. And like, just like when you order furniture from pottery barn or restoration hardware or something, like, unless there's some crazy special, like you're expecting to pay like you know. $400 to $600 usually to get that one piece of furniture into your living room and have all the trash taken away. Like that's just normal part of buying furniture. so it's been shocking to me how many designers here are like, but I don't know that my clients are gonna pay that. And it's like they're already they're already acclimated to paying for that service, if they've ever bought furniture before. And two, like, why would anyone think that that was something that you would pay for them. it's just doesn't make any sense. so we've had I've found it challenging to educate our our f our potential clients who are designers about that. but also to explain that like the costs of using a subpar warehouse well exceed like the predictable regular amounts that we are auto-billing you so that you can then charge back your client. So it's like if your $800 stool goes missing in the warehouse and you have to buy your client another stool, you know, versus having sent it here to our nice warehouse where everything is tracked and accounted for and paying, you know, maybe maybe you leave it there for months and you pay like $200 in storage. It's like where you're Still coming out six hundred dollars ahead. So yeah, I think that's the challenge I've found that I wasn't anticipating that and the hiring people who are solid, good, hardworking people not on drugs. that's where we're trying to educate people about like receiving is part of the service. And it's a normal thing in the world whether you're ordering from restoration hardware or an interior designer. Right for it. Yeah. Yeah. I think education in general is just such like a big part of what we do. And it's hard because you like get into design thinking that you people are gonna appreciate your knowledge, your expertise, and that you're not gonna have to explain certain parts of your business or what you do. And then when you're like constantly having to do that, it's it's it's challenging and it's exhausting. Yes. And it gets you down. yeah. Yeah. Speaking of speaking of education, I'm gonna I'm giving you a scoop. so because I because I don't have enough businesses, Sam, I started working with another amazing designer a year ago. She reached out to me because she had started working on writing a course for homeowners and asked if I would help and participate and in the process of that. Over the past year we created a new business called DesignWise. And we are launching an online course for homeowners. So to guide them through the renovation process. so She's super busy being an amazing designer in San Francisco. And I'm super busy designing here in Louisville and doing this white glove warehouse thing. And I think there were points in the last year where both of us were like, again, what are we doing? And why did we start this? But we're like literally about to launch maybe next week, maybe the week after that. Because again, things keep coming up. But But we are excited about that. And I feel like it's different than there are a lot of things on Instagram, obviously, that's like buy this course, blah, blah, blah. And I feel like they're they're a lot targeted towards designers who like learn more about construction or people in the industry. they're not always directed directly to the homeowner. And it's not just about like what the renovation process it's like. It's like how do you work with an architect? How do you work with a designer? How do you work with a contractor, you as the homeowner, to make sure that your home building or renovating process goes smoothly? Yeah. That's smart. And I definitely think it's needed in the industry in general. Cause I do, I think, you know, 90% of our clients come in our office and are so confused about the process. And then it doesn't matter, you know, we had a client last week we just really struggled with because they wanted to take our spec lists and essentially price them out through a bunch of other people and like get pricing. And so we were just discouraged and we, you know, it required like a really direct conversation around like we have talked about this many times. This has been like the standard procedure. We've communicated at this point and this point and this point. And you know I think largely s people are just homeowners are generally uneducated about how the process works. They their familiarity is like HGTV as much as I love them. It's just like a totally different thing. And it's like not real life. It's not even clear. And so I think HGTV has done a really good job glamorizing things, but they also are in a time period where They're like in an influencer era where they're pulling stars from other networks to like become designers and like they those designers have full teams of people behind them. They're not doing it. They're not. And so you know, there's a disservice in the industry of like how how the public is educated around the design world in general. And then and then you also there's like the uneducated part of it. And then there's also the clients that just like because they they're they may know that there's like this gap in education, they wanna like well, I didn't know, I didn't know. And so Yeah. I think it's you know, it behooves all of us to be able to just have like very direct, clear conversations with our clients to protect ourselves, to protect our design, to protect our time and our investments and whatnot. But it's Yeah, it's a really stressful time to be a designer. I d I don't think that it's gotten easier. I think, especially in the age of like AI coming to the conversations and like th that being a part of the discussion, it's all it's it's overwhelming and it's hard to know like how do we do this on top of the fact that we also have like humans right now really struggling To maintain work, to work well, to like do all the things to your point. we've had high turnover in certain positions in our office because generally I'm finding like a certain age group, without being completely ageist, really struggles to just show up on time and like be committed to an office and like committed to work. And I I've hired this office person as my third person in twelve months. And the previous two people were in our Between our age brackets. So that confused me a lot. And yeah. Yeah. But like literally, like show up. Like, this one lady was like, I've got to get my hair done next week. I've got to go get bo I was like, I I don't know what's happening here. Like this is a job. We could have a whole other conversation about that, I'm sure. But like that's you know, that I I think that that's part of being in the messy kind of middle too, is just like identifying I I have become a much different business owner today than I was three years ago, especially when it comes to employees, my tolerance of employees, how things go, my expectations of them. I start an interview at this point with I work more than forty hours a week, you're just never gonna see it. So the fact that I get my hair done and my nails done in your work period only happens Because I've got kids at home, but I'm still up at midnight at home working every night. So if it's gonna be a problem, yeah. We like I don't want to hear it to work. To your point, I have had employees that are like, Well, you get your hair done and you get your deals done. And I'm like Well, you pay the bills. I'm the one that actually got to where you like you have a job in this office. Because of me. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna go get my hair done and then I'll still be in here on Saturday. So don't worry about it. Exactly. Yeah. As we're both sitting here on Labor Day. Yeah. Yeah. Labor Day. It's like people, yeah, they don't understand. that you just made me think about something else. related to design being a business is I don't know if this happens to you, but literally every single time a stranger, you know, my the dental hygienist or person I meet at a cocktail party. Every single time someone says, What do you do? And I say, I'm an interior designer. The response 100% of the time is, that sounds so fun. I would totally be a designer if I weren't a, you know, lawyer, dental hygienist, doctor, like, that sounds amazing. And it's like, and I always say, like, it can be and like, Ten percent of the time it is amazing and fun and I love my clients and I love creating for them and I love the finished product. But like that's 10% of it. And then 90% of it is like, you know, logistics and admin and you know, dealing with difficult challenging people and really putting out fires nonstop. And it's one of the most it's ridiculously stressful. you know, it's not we're not curing cancer, we're not doing things that are like high pressure, high stakes scenario, except that we are like it's people's homes and and it's you know, people's money. And so I find that the stakes are actually very high and you know, it's It's it's stressful to balance that all for somebody else, to balance somebody else's dream home and their budget and have it all be stunningly beautiful is actually a job. It is not it is not so fun. That part is not so fun. I agree with you. I think it's probably like ten percent of the time that I and I and I I have to also say, like, it's the other ventures that keep me more like honestly, starting this podcast was like just like a heart goal of mine because I'm like, I love community, I love transparency, I love authenticity, I love creating space for us to talk about the realities of business. Like this actually in some ways brings me more joy than designing sometimes because it's you know, the the clients and the the dynamics can just be so difficult. And so difficult. you do have to find the other things that like help offset the burnout. And I think to your point too, like my identity for the first probably eight years of my di design business really was like, I want to be successful. I want to have, you know, have all this PR. I want to have all these things and I had all these goals. And I ran it because I was so unhappy at home. And so then it was just like this became the thing that I expected to like make me happy. And when it didn't, then it was just like What is it? Now what? And so I really had to like get to the core of like what am I doing? How am I doing it? Why am I doing that? And how do I rebuild this in a way that like brings me peace that like Helps me feel fulfilled. And I think I just I personally had to let go of like, I'm not gonna be the designer and art digest. I'm not gonna be the designer that like pursues the like top tier nationwide. That's not gonna be me. I wanna be home with my kids. I want to be present. I want to have a business that I can like leave the office and shut the door and like not be able to think about every second and like lose sleep about I want to have balance in my life. And so once I was able to do that and like unhinged from this expectation in our industry to have like the best portfolio or like the highest PR or like all of these different things. And I just kind of got content with like, you know, my business does over a million dollars a year. Like what more can I ask for? Yeah. Like what can I do? Like what yeah. What do I care about? Why do I care about any of that other stuff? Like I've my there's food on the table. We live comfortably and I'm like happy and this is enough. And so I think I just had to reach a point where it was like enough is enough. And I had to just like let it go. But it's it's I this is like this is the thing that's more fulfilling for me in this moment. I love our projects, obviously. I love the design. sphere, but like even my clients, like this studio is set up in our in our design studio. This is this is technically like my private office that we've turned into the podcast studio. And you have to walk by it when you come through the front door. And so my clients will like walk by and see it and they'll be like, what are you doing? Are you starting a podcast? And I'm like, Yeah, we're starting a podcast to talk about all the shit that's really hard in the industry and like that nobody talks about. Yeah. And our clients are like So cool. I can't wait to listen. I'm like, not sure you're gonna want to listen, but okay. So But the should. Honestly, they should. Because I feel like, you know, people, the regular people, the clients, they have no idea how challenging the industry is because they see it on Instagram, they see it on TV, and it looks glamorous, and it looks like, yeah, we're we're wearing nice clothes, we're Looking nice, we're going to nice houses and and but the nitty gritty of it is so hard and so unglamorous. It's like it's two extremes, right? We're either like walking around in some fabulous outfit or we're like scrubbing toilets in our client's house af So because the contractor didn't and like we can't have them come home to messy bathrooms, right? Yeah. yeah. Or, you know, we're opening boxes or we're we're just we're on our we spend a lot of time on our hands and knees scrubbing and doing things that are very unglamorous and yeah, you wouldn't expect. I think to like kind of full circle, I guess, close the loop on that and our I feel like this has been like such a good conversation just about like sitting in the middle of all the things. what do you feel like is the one thing that if you could change it right now would like move the needle for you or help you feel like your business is more dialed in? Do you feel like it's systems and processes or do you feel like it's hiring, pricing? What what is the thing that you feel like would move the needle for you if it like got fixed? I would really what I'm trying to focus on when I have a minute to focus on anything, which is never. But like the thing that I've been thinking about is like the pipeline. Yeah. So I feel like I'm still it's still very ad hoc. I'm still feeling like lucky that people discover me. And you know, I have how to say this, but like I I have maybe like a little higher profile outside of Louisville than I have in it. But yeah, all my all my projects are in Louisville. Like people aren't hiring me from other cities. Sure. And so I don't know, it's strange. But then the people who hire me in Louisville will like hire me because they read an article I, you know, wrote something in or was quoted in in like the Wall Street Journal. So it's sort of I don't know. I sort of feel it sort of feels like haphazard still in a way. Yeah. I take on, you know, very few projects now and they're the right projects where you know, they will lead to referrals, l but like I told you before, earlier in my career here in Louisville, I was taking on all kinds of small projects for people like where those are not gonna turn into referrals because they're just not this kind of project I do. and then again I'm not from here. So I felt like the challenge is like really getting my name out in Louisville and then concurrently getting potential clients in Louisville To understand that I am a different kind of designer than maybe they've been exposed to. You know? Yes. Yes. Yes. Same, same in my community. I know what that feels like. So it's just it's like a positioning thing that I would like to figure out. And I will say I've had Tremendous assistance from Carolyn Pinkston, PR, who I hired after Design Camp. And she a couple e maybe three years ago I hired her for a year or two years. And she like really put me on the map in in to the extent that I'm on any map. You know what I mean? But like was really invisible. And she really made me visible. And you know, that was a big investment for me in PR at the time. and but it continues to pay dividends. So like, you know, this article I just referenced, like reporters will reach out to me now, even though I'm I don't actively work with her now because I don't have any new projects to promote. Sure, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I can't wait to work with her again. when I have these projects photographed, but like because of the work she did and then the relationships I've forged with writers, people still reach out to me directly for PR opportunities, which I think is amazing and yeah literally would only have happened because of her and her work. So I want to give her credit. so it's like PR is really expensive and But I think it's worth it because it it continues to pay dividends like long after the initial investment. that's still like how anybody knows me or knows to reach out is from these little bits of PR that I'm still lucky enough to get tossed my way. Sure. I agree with that. I I actually hired Carolyn too, and sh I think she's amazing. I don't think for a designer that like doesn't have as distinct of a portfolio as you do. I don't know if it is as beneficial. So I didn't see a ton of like traction from that investment only because, like self-admittedly, I think our projects look very similar to like a lot of other designers and it's just like not I don't think so. Edgy enough. I know that's so sweet of you and I appreciate that. But I'm also like a realist and I'm very pragmatic. So I'm just like it like This bunk room looks like all the other bunk rooms right now. You know, so like Yeah. It's but I will say, like, you know, she I so I had I hired her because I had at the time I met her at design camp, I was like in the midst, like I am now, in the midst of a project that I thought, like, this is gonna be it. This is the one. I'm gonna, you know, this is gonna put me on the map. And then I hired her and then when that project was photographed and ready, she got it placed in Arc Digest online. And that was like I was like, I have made it. This is it. Like you know it's gonna be like on trade tales where Caitlin Peterson says, and then one thing led to another. And then you have like this super successful business. And and yeah, I was like dead over that. And then that was three years ago. And it's like only now starting to like pay off. Like I thought, you know, the next month my phone would be ringing off the hook. And it was like, no, it takes so long for you know, just that those pieces, those PR pieces or articles or whatever to like even be indexed by Google, you know, and then show up with your name. Like it just takes forever. So now yeah. So like again, I Wildly impatient. I'm like, I've I'd save. That's my problem. And yeah, I'd be doing projects like that one amazing project from there on out. And it was like, nope, nope, not even just now. Just now, three years later, am I doing another project that I feel like is hopefully arc digest worthy, you know? so yeah, it's it's it's a weird thing, but I do think it it It does eventually pay off. So it's the I think what you're what we're all arriving at is like we need to have patience. Yeah. So in a world of like instant gratification and perfectionism and all of those things, like I can't do it. I don't know. We have to have some patience. I don't know. Until until it all like works out, I'm just gonna feel like a total failure and like I think we are just like We all like I mean for many years I had like fake it till you make it mentality or fumble forward, I would say, or like whatever. So it's you know, we these are the things that we all as business owners have to say to like get us through the day. And I think that that's okay. And I think it is a you At what point are we like, we we made it. We did it. Nothing Maybe when you're like, you know, sitting on the stage at design camp next to, you know, Jake Arnold, you know, then you can be like, I have made it. Not my goal, but I will cheerlead for you when you're on the stage. How about that? So Well, I'm still waiting for one thing to lead to another, so it could be a long way. Sure. Nonetheless, I really appreciate this chat. I really appreciate just like creating space to like just talk about how hard it is to have a design business in this country. It's so fun. I have enjoyed it so much. If anyone listening, if if this resonates with you guys, you've got more questions, you want to hear more about certain things that we talked about or touched on, send us a DM, drop a comment, whatever. I can always pull Bethany back on a call and we can just like chat like girlfriends some more. So me too. I would be happy to. But I I'll let you go. I don't want to take up any more of your time. I feel like it's I feel like we could just chat about and lament about all the things around business are all day. So but thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for yes and yes that sounds good. All right, Bethany, thanks. We're dreamers. Don't care what other people say. We live it like this to be a final day. We dreamers.