Business Lessons from Ginger Curtis

(with a few notes from yours truly)

[WARNING:  While there’s interesting stuff in here for everyone, it is focused on those who own a business, especially a design-based business, or would like to.]

Shoshanna Shapiro (left), owner of Sho & Co, and Ginger Curtis (right), founder and lead designer of Urbanology at Chartreuse & co

Do you own a business?  Or want to?  There’s so much to recommend it, but it’s not for the faint of heart.  Nor is it for the risk-averse.   For those of you left, armed with a bit of knowledge, you can go far.  Here’s a few tips Ginger Curtis, founder and CEO of Urbanology Designs, shared with us during the DMV Designer Social we hosted (organized and produced beautifully by Shoshanna Shapiro, owner of Sho & Co design firm).

1.  Don’t let any bad experience be wasted

Often it feels like a bad experience, frankly, is a waste.  But look beyond the immediate situation and there’s some great stuff to be learned.  It’s from experiences with bad clients that you’ll get the details of your contract nailed down.  It’s from that expensive item that arrived broken that you’ll nail down some of your best policies.   Ginger and my father sing the same song:  It’s okay to have a failure, but be sure you learn from it.  And use it.

Beyond those lessons learned from bad experiences, you can also take them and turn a seeming negative into a positive.

I’m a great adherent of this one.   Whether it’s relatively small, like a customer who’s unhappy or as big as COVID-19, bad stuff happens and your business’ future can be defined by how you handle it. 

In the case of an irate customer, when someone is angry and demanding with you, it’s human nature to be defensive, and to take it personally.  Do not.  See the situation as an opportunity to make a devoted customer and fan of your company.  When  you approach an individual with this attitude, instead of feeling accosted, you’ll have done 80% of fixing the problem.  Yes, it sometimes means taking something back that your gut tells you the customer damaged themselves. You may lose something in that moment, but the gains are countless in the long run.

In the larger things, being shut down during COVID, a landlord forcing you out, a European container that’s been lost.  These are the opportunities that become game changers.  Shifting to on-line sales has benefits well beyond the COVID crisis.  The search for a fresh location for your business can be freeing and  shoot you into a fresher, and better, direction than you had been in.  The lost European container is a lesson in having good insurance, but also makes a fascinating story for your customer base.  Discussing hard times honestly and with authentic insights binds your customer to you like few things can.

These are just a few examples, but you get the gist:  See the “I get to…” rather than the “I have to…” in each experience. 

“I get to create on online store at a time when I’m not distracted by our in-store demands.”

“I get to relocate ANYWHERE, and hone my brand accordingly.”

“I get to be real with my customers, and build a relationship with them.”

Never let a bad experience go to waste.

Ginger Curtis, enjoying her published book.

2. Building Your Team

The key to operating a healthy business is the people you have on your team.  To that end, Ginger insist you define your company’s culture first.  Ask yourself:

“What do I care about?” 

“What do I stand for?” 

“What do I want the heartbeat of my company to be?”        

And then hire for your culture.  Ginger even gave us some tools to help in this challenging part of the equation:         

Strength Finder 2.0 – have everyone on your team take it

This is a tool based on comprehensive research done by Gallup about 25 years ago on individuals in the workforce.  Read the book, and have your entire team take the test to determine their key skill sets.  These aren’t personality tests, but rather a test to determine how each team member works and how to maximize their strengths in your company.

Enneagram Types – find out what each person on your team is

This one is more of a personality test.  This one’s a great tool for guiding your team to work well together.  Their personalities and propensities do make a difference in how your whole team will perform.

Have weekly meet-ups with each member of your team, and quarterly meet-ups of the whole team.  I totally agree with Ginger on this one.  In fact, I have weekly 15-minute meet ups with everyone on our team, plus a 30-60 minute (depending on what we’re covering) weekly.  We go around the room and everyone BRIEFLY describes what they’re working on that week, so that we all know what’s on everyone’s plate. 

Those meetings Ginger does quarterly, we do annually.  We call them SWAT meetings and from them come our goals and marching orders for the year.  SWAT stands for:  Strengths (what you do well, your super powers), Weaknesses (be ruthless with this category!), Actions (what you’re gonna do to use those strengths to fix those weaknesses), and Tasks (who’s gonna be doing what, and WHEN).   As Ginger says, these meetings allow you to, “Realign where we set our goals, and see what we meant to do and what we actually did.”

3. Where there is not another you

Build a business around what you are uniquely good at.  Ask. yourself what you're passionate about, what your vision is, and what, exactly, about those things is distinctive and unique.  If you see someone else already doing it, look deeper to find what is intrinsically you, and no one else.  That's where you'll shine. 

4. Confidence Is the Key to Success

Ginger notes that  in the interior design world, “Confidence is key to success.”  I would add that this is true in so much of life, actually.   Whether you’re reading this from the designer or from the client perspective, you must have faith in your designer and what he/she creates.  A designer lacking confidence undermines the process and the client faith.  A client lacking confidence in the designer is a non-starter. 

Ginger also discussed the flat fee vs hourly rate.  To create the best client/designer experience, and to be fairest to all involved, for Ginger it’s the flat fee.  This only works if the designer has to have a very clear idea of what time they’ll be putting into the project.  And there must a be a very clear contract showing exactly what is included and expected.  For instance, one re-select per room would be included (a re-select is a change in either fabric, paint, maybe window treatment style).  But unlimited re-selects would not.  That would kick into hourly fees, in addition to the flat rate.

While this may sound harsh to those of you not in the design world professionally, it is a fact of life that once you present a design to a client, they get so excited about the vision of their home in this fresh and oh-so-much-more-livable design.  But they get into the weeds, and show it to a friend, and suddenly they lose confidence, and question the use of that bold fabric on that little chair.  Or should the walls really be that deep a color?  If the designer lacks confidence in themselves, these questions erode everything.  The client must have faith in the process, and recall the time spent considering the space, how it would be used, and what the client is actually reaching for.  Dilute that vision and the entire design falls apart.  So, only one re-select per room.  No more. 

I once did a kitchen renovation design which was tricky because of some physical limitations.  So I presented three different designs, based on three different costs (i.e. how much construction the client could tolerate).  Biggest mistake ever.  The client liked elements of all three and I found myself in a spiral of reworked designs.  This process is unfair to both the client AND the designer.   So flat fee.  One re-select per room.

“DO NOT negotiate the process or the price.”  Ginger spoke these words in caps.  You know what you’re worth, and if you have bid the job correctly, the price is what it is.  If you entertain negotiation, you’ll both lose.  The designer will lose money on the project, and the client won’t get the best from the designer.

And finally, “Have a minimum.  Opportunity always follows value.”  You don’t want to be wasting your time on tiny projects, which in the long run take a basis amount of time similar to the larger ones.

The Short-term Rental Business

Ginger touched on a subject which fascinates me:  short-term luxury rentals, such as Airbnb and VRBO.  There’s even a VRBO Rental Design Summit in High Point, NC each April now.   Ginger has renovated a cottage near her offices, and describes it as one of the funnest design jobs she’s ever done.  Check out theurbanologycottage.com  The key to these rentals’ success is “creating a design experience,” Ginger encouraged.   And, for me, it’s my favorite kind of space to decorate!

Our seasonal Concept Cottage has come out of this idea.  I've taken the small cottage near our house, here on the Chartreuse property, and redesign it for Spring, Fall, and Holiday based on my design crush of that season.  Conceived as a whole house, it's tons of fun (and allows me to flex my decorating creativity with abandon several times a year).

Extra benefit to the designer and client:  if you’re doing a whole-house renovation, or even a smaller, but equally disruptive renovation, have a short-term luxury rental available for your client to use, is a real asset.

Getting the Word Out

Great photography and great styling are the keys to getting noticed.  If you aren’t good at styling, the “1,000% hire a stylist!” according to Ginger.  Communicate early and often with both the photographer and the stylist, to be sure they get your vision, and understand the needs of the publications you’re hoping to get placed in.  Preferably, select a stylist who’s worked with your goal publications before. It’s the images created by your stylist and photographer that you post on social media and send out to publications (do so for every single job!) that get attention and get picked up by the publications.

That said, “Don’t post every picture, just the best ones,” warns Ginger.  It is so tempting to just post them all, but a smattering of the best give a sense of the house, and tease the audience to want to see more like them.  Whether the audience is clients or publications, give them only what is superb.  

Speaking of publications, seek them out in your region and nationally.  If you can, Ginger recommends contacting the  editor-in-chief.  And submit work every time you do a job.

For my part I’ve never been much for reaching for the editor-in-chief.  But if you look at the articles on projects that are in your area, in your style, etc, take note of the writer.  That writer will probably ‘get you’ and your design style.  Put that writer on your list and send him/her your work.   And if you meet a reporter, “help a reporter,” Ginger advises.  If you can become a resource, a quick-call trend-check for that reporter, you’ve struck gold.

Hope you've found these business insights interesting.  Many of them translate into everyday advise, too.  

Thanks for reading!

Virginia