How Design Firm Principals Can Protect Profit by Building Stronger Teams

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Running a design firm in 2025 doesn’t look much like it did ten years ago. Principals aren’t just steering the creative direction anymore; they’re juggling HR issues, software decisions, shifting overhead, and client expectations that move faster than ever. We’ve always worn multiple hats but at this point, that stack of hats has turned into a tower. Some days, the role feels like part-CEO, part-therapist, and part-traffic cop. That tension can be terrible! How do you stay the “visionary” when you’re also fielding payroll questions and calming clients about delays? Of course, this expansion of the “top role” isn’t happening in isolation. Across industries, founders are being forced into operator mode as businesses become more complex. In interior design, the effect is amplified because the product is so personal.

Tying in Profitability Pressure (with Real Data)

Running a firm in 2025 requires principals without teams to juggle tasks while keeping profitability from disappearing under overhead. Our team was reading Sean Low’s Business of Home column from March 2025, “My business brings in millions, but I’m barely breaking even.” He describes firms that are pulling in good revenue (multi-million dollars) yet seeing so little profit that after expenses, there’s almost nothing left.

That rings true for many principals we’ve talked to. It’s not glamorous but, of course, the salaries, new hires, software bills, rent, insurance, insurance again, shipping surcharges, staff turnover… it all stacks up. Even if product and creative fees are strong, the margin leaks are often in areas people ignore like untracked hours, revisions, delayed deliveries, or projects where you have “scope creep”.

Chances are, you monitor which kinds of projects are truly profitable, which clients eat up more time than they pay for, how your fee structure does (or doesn’t) cover overhead. Sean Low suggests doing margin analysis not as a financial exercise only, but as a way to understand where you’re bleeding, e.g., labor, client expectations, product supply chain, or back-office inefficiencies.

Hours Lost to Operations

Look inside many firms and you’ll find the principal’s calendar packed not with design reviews, but with tasks more typical of a COO. Compliance filings, contract negotiations, software rollouts, hiring decisions, and vendor disputes take up hours each week.

Every one of those tasks is critical, but together they push creative leadership to the margins. Now, the role looks less like directing vision and more like constant operational firefighting.

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Clients Expect More

Meanwhile, client expectations haven’t softened at all. If anything, they’ve grown more demanding. High-end clients now expect a principal’s visible involvement throughout the project from pitch to punch list. That’s difficult enough in firms with deep senior staff. In smaller or mid-sized firms, it means the principal is simultaneously selling, designing, and delivering, all while watching profitability erode.

How Principals Can FINALLY Fight Their Way Out of the Weeds

Pressure is never alleviated on its own. Principals who want their firms to thrive in 2025 need to take the same disciplined approach to their role that they take with design work. That starts with identifying which tasks only you can do and which ones you must hand off.

At our Build Your Dream Team workshop in High Point this October, we walk through the Delegate2Elevate tool, which helps principals sort tasks into quadrants: what energizes you, what drains you, what only you can do, and what others could do with the right training. This exercise sounds deceptively simple, but for many principals it’s the first time they’ve put real structure around what their role should (and shouldn’t) be.

Who to Hire First

The instinct is often to hire another designer. Sometimes that’s right. But more often than not, the first transformative hire is operational: a project coordinator, a bookkeeper, or a procurement lead who can stop the financial and logistical leaks that keep you awake at night. For example, Project Coordinators keep timelines, vendor communication, and deliverables moving. They make sure what you promised in the proposal actually happens on schedule.

Procurement Staff track orders, handle freight quotes, and catch mistakes before they snowball. As we’ve written before, one wrong SKU or hidden surcharge can undo your margin. A strong procurement person prevents that. Bookkeepers or Operations Managers aren’t glamorous hires, but they’re the ones who can reconcile costs against budgets and stop scope creep from eroding profit.

Each of these roles frees principals to focus where their presence matters most: client relationships, creative direction, and long-term strategy.

Creating Accountability

Of course, hiring is only half the equation. Without clear accountability, new team members often add confusion instead of clarity. That’s why we emphasize tools like the Accountability Chart in our workshop.

Unlike a traditional org chart, which shows who reports to whom, an Accountability Chart defines what each role is responsible for. Who owns vendor communication? Who approves client change orders? Who signs off on freight? With that clarity, principals can let go and delegate without fearing that balls will be dropped.

Protecting Profitability

Every hire changes the firm’s cost structure, so principals need a plan for how salaries, bonuses, and fees align with profit. At DesignDash, we call this the Salary + Fee Alignment Plan. It maps how each role supports the bottom line, not just in theory but in math.

A procurement agent who saves $20,000 a year in freight mistakes more than justifies their salary. A project coordinator who eliminates scope creep can double their cost in saved hours.

The point isn’t to nickel-and-dime your team. It’s to ensure that every new role strengthens the firm’s financial foundation instead of weakening it.

Building for Growth, Not Just Relief

One mistake we see principals make is hiring only in reaction to pain. You’re drowning in emails, so you hire an assistant. You’re losing track of orders, so you hire a junior designer. But those patchwork decisions often produce team structures that don’t really scale.

Instead, think about the firm you want three years from now. Do you want a boutique team of three handling high-touch projects? Or do you envision a larger studio with departments and directors? Your hires today should move you toward that vision.

Final Thoughts

The role of the design firm principal will only keep expanding. The demands won’t shrink, and profitability pressure won’t ease on its own. But principals who clarify their role, build the right team, and align hires with profitability have a way forward.

If you’re feeling that tension, between being the visionary and being buried in operations, our Build Your Dream Team workshop this October is for you. We’ll give you the tools, frameworks, and coaching to trade firefighting for leadership, and to put profitability back at the center of your practice.

Because principals can’t keep doing it all. And in 2025, they don’t have to.

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.