6 Work Practices That Were a Bust for Pros and What They Changed
Learn from home professionals on Houzz how they improved their businesses by switching up their daily work practices
Finding your groove and fine-tuning your business practices can take some trial and error. Once you find methods that work, you want to stick with them. And when something’s not working, it’s important to be willing to make changes and try new things to help your business.
Six pros share work practices that were a bust for them and the changes they made to work better with their teams, find good clients, track their projects and improve work-life balance. Take a look at what these pros did, then in the Comments tell us some changes you made that produced positive results.
Six pros share work practices that were a bust for them and the changes they made to work better with their teams, find good clients, track their projects and improve work-life balance. Take a look at what these pros did, then in the Comments tell us some changes you made that produced positive results.
2. Giving Clients Too Many Options
Homeowners can get overwhelmed by the sheer number of materials, surfaces, furniture and appliances on the market, not to mention custom designs and products with long lead times. Factor in the current nature of supply chain issues and you have a possible recipe for disaster.
The fix: Be strategic with the number of options you show clients. “Trying to shop with a client or giving them more than one option for each selection was a no-go for us,” says Carl Wesley Lowery, president of Wesley-Wayne Interiors. “[They] created delays that we quickly decided weren’t necessary.” If clients turned down an option, Lowery could easily tweak the design plan and stay on schedule.
How to Handle Clients When They’re Upset, Unruly or Unreasonable
Homeowners can get overwhelmed by the sheer number of materials, surfaces, furniture and appliances on the market, not to mention custom designs and products with long lead times. Factor in the current nature of supply chain issues and you have a possible recipe for disaster.
The fix: Be strategic with the number of options you show clients. “Trying to shop with a client or giving them more than one option for each selection was a no-go for us,” says Carl Wesley Lowery, president of Wesley-Wayne Interiors. “[They] created delays that we quickly decided weren’t necessary.” If clients turned down an option, Lowery could easily tweak the design plan and stay on schedule.
How to Handle Clients When They’re Upset, Unruly or Unreasonable
3. Tracking Project Hours Manually
Keeping a detailed count of how many hours you work on a project can help you monitor your progress, manage your time better and generate a suitable hourly fee or flat rate for clients. But when you have several projects going at once, manually counting every hour can be laborious and inefficient for you and your team.
The fix: Sarah Henley, principal designer of Henley Design, needed a new way to log project hours that would minimize time spent on mindless data entry. “The simple act of tracking all of our hours across all of our projects was becoming a monthly time suck, so we created a custom time tracker to make this process faster and less tedious for all team members,” Henley says. “This frees them up to spend more time designing.”
Keeping a detailed count of how many hours you work on a project can help you monitor your progress, manage your time better and generate a suitable hourly fee or flat rate for clients. But when you have several projects going at once, manually counting every hour can be laborious and inefficient for you and your team.
The fix: Sarah Henley, principal designer of Henley Design, needed a new way to log project hours that would minimize time spent on mindless data entry. “The simple act of tracking all of our hours across all of our projects was becoming a monthly time suck, so we created a custom time tracker to make this process faster and less tedious for all team members,” Henley says. “This frees them up to spend more time designing.”
Their new method uses a personalized Excel document that can be easily sorted by project, activity and date. “Previously it had been a manual process that was much more time-consuming,” Henley says.
Houzz Pro software can also help you and your team track any time you spend or expenses you incur on a project, from the office or in the field.
Houzz Pro software can also help you and your team track any time you spend or expenses you incur on a project, from the office or in the field.
4. Trying to Do Everything Yourself
When you take on too much work or don’t lean on your team, you’re bound to get stressed. Things may start to slip through the cracks and you can find yourself feeling uninspired and unable to meet the demands of the project.
The fix: Architect and partner Eugene Sakai of Studio S Squared Architecture found that doing everything himself wasn’t sustainable. He learned to trust his team and delegate tasks to help them grow through making mistakes firsthand.
Pros Share How They Increase Productivity and Save Time Each Week
When you take on too much work or don’t lean on your team, you’re bound to get stressed. Things may start to slip through the cracks and you can find yourself feeling uninspired and unable to meet the demands of the project.
The fix: Architect and partner Eugene Sakai of Studio S Squared Architecture found that doing everything himself wasn’t sustainable. He learned to trust his team and delegate tasks to help them grow through making mistakes firsthand.
Pros Share How They Increase Productivity and Save Time Each Week
5. Having Predictable Meetings
Meetings allow your team to connect and get on the same page. They can help you stay up to date on project timelines and internal affairs and keep your business running smoothly. But meeting too often using the same agenda or format can get old and leave you operating simply out of habit. Find new ways to meet with your team that address more than daily work updates.
The fix: To break up the monotony of its weekly meetings, Henley Design introduced semiannual team gatherings formatted as thought-provoking workshops focused on streamlining different business processes. “We share tips and tricks, talk about how to improve efficiencies and implement two to three new strategies coming out of each session,” Henley says.
Meetings allow your team to connect and get on the same page. They can help you stay up to date on project timelines and internal affairs and keep your business running smoothly. But meeting too often using the same agenda or format can get old and leave you operating simply out of habit. Find new ways to meet with your team that address more than daily work updates.
The fix: To break up the monotony of its weekly meetings, Henley Design introduced semiannual team gatherings formatted as thought-provoking workshops focused on streamlining different business processes. “We share tips and tricks, talk about how to improve efficiencies and implement two to three new strategies coming out of each session,” Henley says.
6. Working Around the Clock
Putting in extra hours at the office doesn’t always translate to getting more work done (although working around the clock may be necessary during the early stages of growing your business or when working on special projects).
Interior designer Brigid Wethington of B. Chic Interiors focused on building her portfolio and clientele instead of setting clear work hours when she first started her firm. “I found that I was working weekdays, evenings and weekends, basically all the time! My work-life balance has been thrown off many times,” she says. “Now that I have been in business for 15 years, I have created better boundaries with my availability.”
Putting in extra hours at the office doesn’t always translate to getting more work done (although working around the clock may be necessary during the early stages of growing your business or when working on special projects).
Interior designer Brigid Wethington of B. Chic Interiors focused on building her portfolio and clientele instead of setting clear work hours when she first started her firm. “I found that I was working weekdays, evenings and weekends, basically all the time! My work-life balance has been thrown off many times,” she says. “Now that I have been in business for 15 years, I have created better boundaries with my availability.”
The fix: Exercise caution when working too much overtime because it can backfire and lead to decreased productivity, poor-quality work or exhaustion. “We have found that working longer hours to meet project deadlines has not been successful,” says Jennifer Birnstiel, principal architect of ArchiPlicity. “We could revisit the design or construction drawings the next morning when we’re more clear.”
More for Pros on Houzz
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Talk with your peers in the Pro-to-Pro discussions
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More for Pros on Houzz
Read more stories for pros
Learn about Houzz Pro software
Talk with your peers in the Pro-to-Pro discussions
Join the Houzz Trade Program
Casting too wide a net can leave you with prospects who don’t align with your values, work style or aesthetic.
The fix: Knowing your audience can help you save precious time when courting new clients and growing your business. Building designer Mark Greenwald of GCC Designs spent lots of time seeing how he could work with every potential client instead of determining which ones were a good fit for his business. He had to find a way to efficiently connect with homeowners looking for a professional.
“Screening prospective clients for their scope of work and timeline has helped in eliminating projects that were either a headache or unreasonable from a budget or a timing point of view,” Greenwald says. “This alone has freed up time to focus on the work.”
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