The Hire That Changes Everything Might Be Smaller Than You Think

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You know you need help when the work you keep putting off starts creating MORE work for you.

Maybe you’re behind on invoicing again. Maybe you keep doing your own drafting because explaining the project to somebody else seems like a whole project in itself. Your marketing disappears whenever client work picks up, every vendor question comes straight to you, and there are probably three things you meant to follow up on yesterday that you haven’t even remembered yet.

At that point, hiring sounds pretty appealing. It can also sound expensive, complicated, and slightly terrifying. Do you really have forty hours of work for another person every week? What happens if projects slow down? What exactly would you hand over first? And where are you supposed to find somebody who already understands the extremely particular way an interior design firm works?

In Episode 66 of the DesignDash Podcast, Laura Umansky and Melissa Grove talk with Danae Branson, founder of Elite Design Assistance and creator of Niche Maven, about what interior designers are actually hiring for right now. Danae works with everyone from solo designers to larger firms searching for experienced senior designers, and she sees plenty of owners who know they need help LONG before they’re ready to admit they’re ready to hire. 

Five Things to Think About Before You Make the Hire That Changes Everything

#1 Look at the Work You Keep Putting Off

You probably don’t need a personality test to figure out where you need help (although some of us do love a good personality test!). Instead, look at the work you keep avoiding. Nothing about this is glamorous, but it’s incredibly important.

Danae hears from designers who have plenty of projects but are still doing every invoice, purchase order, client email, drawing update, marketing task, and random bit of office admin themselves. Eventually, one of those jobs starts slipping because there are only so many hours in the day.  

Take a look at your actual work week, not your ideal work week, not the week you’ve penciled into a calendar, your REAL work week. What’s repeatedly bumped to tomorrow? What takes you twice as long as it should? What are you doing at 7:00 p.m. that another person could have finished at 2:00? And what are you ignoring completely because client work ALWAYS wins?

If invoicing is constantly late, you don’t necessarily need another designer. If you spend hours every week marking up drawings, drafting support might make a much bigger difference. If you haven’t marketed your firm since June because projects got busy, you might need help there instead.

Start with the work that is making your week harder right now. A hire doesn’t have to sound impressive to make a HUGE difference in your business.

#2 Stop Assuming Your Next Hire Has to Be Full-Time

This is where a lot of designers talk themselves out of hiring before they’ve even looked at the options. You think, I need help, and suddenly you’re calculating a full-time salary, payroll taxes, benefits, a laptop, another desk, and whether you can guarantee enough work every week for the foreseeable future. That would make almost anybody nervous, especially when your project load can change so quickly.

There’s a pretty big gap between doing everything yourself and adding another forty-hour salary to payroll. Danae works with designers who need a few hours of admin help, drafting during busy periods, or an experienced designer who can step in while the firm searches for somebody permanent. Some start with one type of support and add another later as the business grows.  

Maybe you DO need another full-time designer. But maybe ten hours of procurement help every week would change your life. Those are very different decisions, and you don’t need to make the bigger one just because you finally admitted you need help.

#3 Figure Out What You Need Before You Start Looking

“I need help” is probably accurate to your situation, but “I need help” just isn’t enough information to hire somebody on. 

When you’ve been doing everything yourself, it’s easy to start imagining one person who will magically fix all of it. She’ll handle admin, draft in AutoCAD, source furniture, manage procurement, answer clients, create social content, and jump into senior-level design work whenever things get busy. To mix idioms, she’s a jack of all trades and she never drops the ball.

Yeah, good luck finding her.

So pick the biggest problem first. If somebody could walk into your firm Monday morning and take one category of work away from you, what would you choose? Which responsibility is stealing the most time? Which one causes the biggest mess when it doesn’t happen? Which one are you simply not very good at?

Then think about what the person would need to know to take that work off your plate. Danae pays attention to the platforms firms already use because an assistant who already knows Studio Designer, AutoCAD, SketchUp, Asana, or another program can get started much faster.  

You can hire somebody else later. Your next hire only needs to solve the problem you actually have right now.

#4 Start Looking Before You’re Completely Overwhelmed

Interior design makes staffing particularly tricky because your workload can change FAST. Three projects sign in the same month and suddenly everybody has more work than they can reasonably do. Then construction gets delayed on one, another client disappears on vacation for three weeks, and the schedule looks completely different from when that project was initially booked.

That unpredictability gives you a very convincing reason to wait. You’ll hire when the next project signs. Or after this install. Or once you know what next quarter looks like. Or when everything calms down a little. Meanwhile, you’re still doing too much. Danae has designers come to her, decide they aren’t ready, and return months later because nothing has changed. Sometimes they come back more than once.

Researching your options doesn’t obligate you to hire somebody by Friday. You can find out what different kinds of help cost, talk to contractors, consider part-time support, and figure out what you would hand over BEFORE you’re so busy that the first available person with a pulse looks fantastic.

Give yourself enough time to make a decent hiring decision. Your judgment is probably better before your brain has turned to mashed potatoes.

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#5 Remember That Somebody Else Can Only Help If You Actually Work With Her

Hiring another person creates a new job for you too. You have to explain what you need, give her the information she needs, answer questions, and make time for the two of you to figure out how to work together.

That can be incredibly difficult and quite mentally taxing when you’re hiring because you already have too much to do. The temptation is to hand somebody a task with half the context, disappear into client work, and then wonder why the finished version wasn’t what you had in mind.

A trial can tell you whether the person understands your instructions, communicates well, and can actually do the work. It also tells you whether YOU gave her a fair chance to do any of those things.

If a new hire has to chase you for files, wait three days for an answer, or guess what you meant because you were too busy to explain it, she’s going to have a hard time making your life easier.

Give her something real to work on, make sure she has what she needs, and pay attention to how the two of you work together. You might have a few things to learn too.

The Hire That Changes Everything Might Be Smaller Than You Think

Laura started hiring almost immediately after she launched her firm because business development came naturally to her and she needed people who could help with all the work she was bringing in. Other designers work alone for years before they finally decide they would really, REALLY like another human being involved.  

There isn’t one perfect first hire for every interior design firm. Your business might need a senior designer who can take on an entire project. You might need somebody who spends Friday morning sending invoices so you never have to think about them again. Maybe you need a drafter for twelve hours a week, or somebody who finally keeps your marketing going when projects get busy.

Think about what would make your actual week better. What would you happily hand over tomorrow? Where does work keep backing up because you don’t have time for it? How much help would you realistically use right now?

The hire that changes everything might be a much smaller hire than you imagined. They might not even be a real team member (perhaps just a contractor!) Take the leap and get help where it’s needed!

Written by the DesignDash Editorial Team
Our contributors include experienced designers, firm owners, design writers, and other industry professionals. If you’re interested in submitting your work or collaborating, please reach out to our Editor-in-Chief at editor@designdash.com.