By the time this blog is read by everyone whose reading it, I will be a mom of three! SO CRAZY. Right now, writing it, I am almost 16 weeks pregnant with the third Miller baby and we couldn’t be more excited! At the moment, I am already a mom of 2. My husband and I have two daughters, Scottlyn (4) & Scarlett (3). I like to tell people we are just getting out of the “thick of it” but adding this third, I know were going back in.
Here are some things that had to change/adjust when I decided to brand my design business to make both work
- Teamwork makes the dream work. It’s a team effort in the household. My husband has a very non-flexible job, so we know when he’s home and when he’s not. There would be nights that the day would be so wild with the kids, I couldn’t do anything for design school until he got home, or the kids went to bed. Planning a couple hours a day to tuck away while he has the kiddos was always helpful, and actually gave me a mental break.
- Have a schedule! I’m a very “type A” person married to another “type A” person, so my hubby and I color code everything for girls, dogs, work, date nights etc. All is planned out in advance, and we make sure to try and balance it the best we can. Without a consistent (as possible) and organized calendar, I don’t really think running a business while “mom’n” would be an option for me.
- Delegate things. It’s hard for me to do, but at one point work was so busy we decided that if I’m really going for this, my daughters were going in full time day care. We were flexible (example: if dad had a day off, I would lighten my workload and spend the day with the girls) For the most part though, to run a business, design, manage clients internationally, I really was in my office and had to make that decision to go full time. Hiring a cleaning lady because there aren’t enough hours in the day to maintain the size house we lived in is another!
- Limiting how much work I take on. At first it was so hard to say no, especially before I charged. I was just so excited anyone or anything wanted me to design a space in their home! After branding and officially launching I learned there are clients for me and there are clients that don’t fit that NMI mold. (Cue the discovery call being where we find that out) Turning down work that doesn’t seem to align with your business, your vision, aesthetic or even if the personalities don’t line up have been reasons I have turned down work. Ultimately, I want to pick jobs that make it worth the time I would be giving up with my husband and kiddos and building this business.
- Delegate the back end. This is somewhat going off number 3 but probably my most helpful that I have done in my business is delegate out some of the business tasks I didn’t want to waste my time on, that I wasn’t good at and that really was taking up time with my kids that I didn’t want to. Delegating all back-office things to my assistant was the best thing I ever did for my business. We made a huge list of things that had to do with the business that I needed help with, that I didn’t have in place yet and basically what can we do to make it a well oil machine. Making the CRM experience more efficient and able to run on its own was huge, and just keeping organized with her has been so helpful to be able to spend more time on design and being a mom, it’s a must!
Even if you are not an interior designer who is also a mom reading this, but maybe just any kind of business owner – I hope this helps you! Doing interior design brings me so much self worth, purpose and I have so much passion for it that I feel honored to do it everyday. Being a mom is the greatest joy and I can’t wait to add another little one. You can have both though, it just takes a lot of what I said in this post and a lot of hard work to juggle it all.
Wishing you all the best!
XOXO
Natalie
