エピソード

  • Why Interior Designers Choose This Photographer’s Work (George Diebold)

    Why Interior Designers Choose This Photographer’s Work (George Diebold)
    2026/07/21
    In this captivating episode, Gail Doby sits down with fine art photographer and interior design graduate George Diebold. Gail shares her personal journey as a collector of George’s work, highlighting how consistent weekly email marketing over several years eventually led her to select two major pieces for her new home. George reflects on opening his commercial studio in 1978 and building a reputation with Fortune 500 companies in New Jersey before earning his interior design degree at age 50. He discusses why interior designers are sometimes hesitant to specify photography over traditional paintings and breaks down the technical nuances of dye sublimation (metal printing), which offers extreme archival durability and vibrant color depth. George also shares the stories behind his Hawaiian landscapes and floating plumeria shots, while offering a critique of AI’s impact on the authenticity of the photographic medium. Photo used with permission. © GEORGE DIEBOLD In this episode, Gail and George discuss: Long-Term Nurturing via Email: How Gail followed George’s weekly emails for 6–7 years before purchasing art for her new office space.Going Back to School at 50: Why a home renovation project on Kauai inspired George to enroll in an interior design program alongside 20-year-olds.Why Designers Hesitate on Photography: Overcoming the myth of photography’s “reproducibility” and avoiding the trap of generic, copycat imagery.The Backstory Behind the Art: Why telling the harrowing story of long-exposure lava captures or aquarium-shot floating plumeria helps designers sell photography to clients.The AI Debate: Why altering real-world moments with artificial intelligence contradicts the foundational purpose of recording a genuine moment in time. To browse George’s works yourself, visit his website https://www.georgediebold.com If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e5-shownotes https://youtu.be/qR2WcsTLR_o Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBYWell welcome to the Creative Genius Podcast, George. GEORGE DIEBOLDThank you very much, Gail. GAIL DOBYWell, it’ll be fun to have this conversation. I have ⁓ I’ve followed you for a very, very long time. I think I started looking at your photography. I bet it’s been six or seven years ago. And yeah, and I was thinking about it and every time I would get one of your emails, don’t know how I got on your email list, but I would look at your work and I would browse through all those things thinking, I really want one of your pieces. And then when we finally bought this new house, and you can see the picture behind me. That was the one that I bought from you earlier this year. And I just bought a second one from you this year. And I ⁓ am really happy to have those pieces because they’re really interesting and of course beautiful, beautifully shot. So thank you. That’s how I got to know you. GEORGE DIEBOLDThank you. ⁓ yeah, you you were on my constant conta I do a weekly email ⁓ image ⁓ mailing ⁓ primarily to designers and collectors. And ⁓ I guess that’s initially how you found me. Yeah. GAIL DOBYRight. Right. And so it does work to do email marketing because it did take a long time. I just didn’t have a spot to put things in my other house, but when we built this house, it’s larger, so I had the space to do it. So I finally have my own office, which is great. Perfect. ⁓ yeah. So absolutely. And I’m enjoying these a lot. I look at them every day and just admire them. So and I get to see them in my background all the time. ⁓ Yeah. So let’s talk about your background because you actually are a photographer and you have an interior design degree. And it was kind of later in life that you did that. So talk to me about what came first and ⁓ what brought you to interior design. GEORGE DIEBOLDI opened my studio, my photography studio in 1978. ⁓ a bit after college. I graduated in 75. ⁓ I got my design degree when I was 50. And how that happened was we would spend ⁓ a big block of the summer, ⁓ my wife and my son and I ⁓ vacationing and me shooting in Hawaii. And ⁓ I I found after a while that it really didn’t matter that I was back in my studio, that I was still able to run my business from Hawaii. So we decided that we would buy a home out there and we decided on the island of Kauai, bought a home, ⁓ and I made plans to bring it down to the studs and renovate it and then turn the garage into a studio. So I could go back and forth between Hawaii and the East Coast. So I did some rough sketches and I made some detailed notes. I got turned on to an architect. And when she saw them, she said, you should consider studying design. That’s really as far as it went. when I returned back to the East Coast, I just said, you know, all right, I’ll do that. So ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    47 分
  • Purpose, Community, and Health After You Sell Your Business (Nate Collins)

    Purpose, Community, and Health After You Sell Your Business (Nate Collins)
    2026/07/14
    In this masterclass episode of the Creative Genius Podcast, Gail Doby dives deep into the complex world of exit planning with former business operator turned wealth manager, Nate Collins. Nate shares his multi-layered financial background and details his experience taking over a struggling, 150-year-old theatrical licensing firm in 2011, engineering a major operational turnaround, and successfully selling it to the largest privately owned music licensing company in the world in 2019. Despite achieving an extraordinary wealth-creating event, Nate candidly shares his struggle with post-exit depression—a phenomenon backed by a PricewaterhouseCoopers study revealing that 75% of business owners profoundly regret selling their companies within a year. He explains how an unexpected injury led him to author a comprehensive exit-planning workbook designed to guide owners through the personal, business, and financial “legs of the stool” during a two-to-five-year exit runway. In this episode, you’ll hear about: The Emotional Toll of Selling: Why 80% of businesses that go to market fail to sell, and why the emotional friction triggers heavy overreactions for unprepared owners.Investing in the Right Advisors: The critical difference between standard accounting and a specialized M&A team (transaction accountants, M&A attorneys, and specialized wealth managers).The Liminal Period: Understanding the psychological phase between identity shifts, marked by feelings of confusion, uncertainty, and worthlessness.Prosperity vs. Well-Being: Nate’s personal shift from chasing personal prosperity to discovering that fulfillment only comes from structural personal well-being.Defining True Purpose: Why purpose is directly tied to being relevant to the lives of other people and serving something bigger than yourself. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e4-shownotes https://youtu.be/ErpFF1-lpE4 Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBYWell, Nate, I’m so glad to have you here today. You have had the most interesting career from trading distressed debt on Wall Street to managing commercial real estate at private equity firms, turning around a theatrical licensing company. And I think you have a few more little tidbits you want to share with me too, so why don’t you go ahead and add to that? NATE COLLINSThanks, Gail. I’m so excited to be on this podcast. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to your audience. yes, so I have had a very circuitous career. It seems a little bit disjointed. However, at the end of the day, it has always done it has always been financially related. It has always been about investing money. And the two other ones that you mentioned. is after I sold that licensing company, that theatrical licensing company that you discussed, and we’ll discuss that later, I then went on to work at a hedge fund and now I work in wealth management. So yes, you know, always in the financial field. But you may say, wait a second, theatrical licensing, how is that finance? That that sounds like theater. Well, ultimately the real business was entering into agreements with the rights holders, the intellectual property rights holders, and entering an agreement to be a licensing agent on their behalf. And the way that it worked was very similar to real estate investment. We’d pay the the the rights holder up front a large amount of money and then once we had that that the rights to license that property similar to the right to our If you own a busin if you own a a building, you lease it out. In this case, we licensed the property out for a specific amount of time and we try to maximize our return on investment by optimizing those licenses. GAIL DOBYInteresting. Well, you’ve also been a business owner, then that was before you were an a a financial advisor to them. And so how did that help you, eventually selling that theatrical licensing company? NATE COLLINSYes. So I that was such a wonderful such a wonderful chapter in said circuitous career that I’ve had. And I really loved running a business. I really enjoyed operating a business. The the licensing company I took it over in two thousand eleven. It was almost gosh, two hundred and fifty years old. I’m sorry, a hundred and fifty years old. Not older than this country. A hundred and fifty years old. and when I when I took it over in two thousand eleven, it was a real turnaround story. It had just been poorly managed for decades, but with some some exceptional luck and a great team, we were able to turn it around and become one of the most dynamic companies in the industry. And we ended up selling it in two thousand nineteen for a a just more than we had ever expected. And it was it was a lot of fun. Obviously, like any business, I I had a lot of sleepless nights. So that experience ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    37 分
  • Building a Crisis-Proof Team Culture (Susan Feffer)

    Building a Crisis-Proof Team Culture (Susan Feffer)
    2026/07/07
    In this powerful and emotionally charged episode, Gail Doby reunites with former community member Susan Feffer to explore the intersection of business systems, personal crisis, and operational grit. Susan opens up about her childhood, where she discovered her natural gift for spatial design and human connection while navigating a traditional academic environment with an undiagnosed learning disability. Susan recounts how she rebuilt her life after a 2015 divorce, turning her hands-on experience in staging and house-flipping into a full-scale design firm. She shares why she decided to make her first major business investment with the Pearl Collective in February 2024, an operational “insurance policy” that proved vital just months later when a series of major health crises hit her small core team. In this episode, you’ll hear about: The Currency of Connection: How struggling in school taught Susan to use her social intelligence and relationship-building skills to survive and succeed.Shifting the Scarcity Mindset: Overcoming a conservative financial upbringing to realize that investing early in staff and structure is an act of betting on yourself.Preparing to Get “Unlucky”: How a four-month sprint of implementing freight policies and clear contracts allowed Susan’s business to keep running smoothly after her rare blood cancer diagnosis.Playing Hurt: The incredible cultural alignment that took place when Susan’s lead designer, Ashley, and her sister/operations manager, Patty, were also diagnosed with cancer.The Future Succession Plan: Susan’s ultimate goal of scaling back to the owner’s seat so her beloved team can eventually buy and run the firm. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e3-shownotes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV1wzPHLdhM&pp=ygUQcGVhcmwgY29sbGVjdGl2ZQ%3D%3D Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBYWell, Susan, it’s so great to see you. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten together and we are just we miss seeing your incredible smiling face. So thank you for being here. SUSAN FEFFERAnd thank you for having me. This is quite an honor. Very exciting. GAIL DOBYWell, it’s a pleasure. Well, I wanna start off. You have been a part of our community in the past and took a little break for a little while. You’ve had some things going on and we’ll get into that in a few minutes. But tell me about your journey of getting into interior design. Was that intentional? What happened in your life to get you here? SUSAN FEFFERSo as a little girl I loved design. I loved, you know, moving furniture around. I could play in doll houses for days and Fisher Price and Barbie, you know. it came really easily to me and I loved it. And I can’t say that a lot of other things came easy to me. So I had a mother that nurtured that and we would do the show houses and you know, she For when on my 16th birthday, I wanted Laura Ashley balloon curtains and I wanted a matching bedskirt and you know, comforter. And that’s, you know, I was always that girl. And so school was always a real struggle for me. I was not a great student. I was lived a life with an undiagnosed, you know, learning disability. And I was the youngest of five. So I sort of went where the carpool went. And During my, you know life as a child, as a student in a traditional environment, I learned I had to learn quickly how to survive and get through and identify who was gonna help me get there. So there was no blueprint, there was no rule you know, template to say this is what you’re supposed to do. I just had to figure it out and I had to find a solution. And there was a bit of chaos and sense of urgency with that. But I did it. And I would find that, you know, there’s Molly, and she’s in the second row, and she’s got her kilt to her knees, and she’s super quiet. So I’m gonna ask Molly for her notes, and then I’m gonna ask her to tutor me. And my mom’s gonna pick up her notebook, and you know, and then in return, I would ask Molly. To go to the party on Saturday night. You know, that was my currency. Like that came easy to me. Social things came easy to me. People that was easy, you know, but school was really hard. And I look back now, and it was actually the greatest thing that happened to me because what you know, I feel like it was so hard, and God was like giving this to me, but at the same time, like. SUSAN FEFFERThis was the greatest gift because I was able to touch into, tap into a part of me that found my strength and it found my strength in the struggle. It found that I was great at connecting people. I was able to figure out how to get through without like on my own. so anyway, I went to design school after high school. That was also a disaster because I was an interior design major and a textile design major. I’m 54, so this was a ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    33 分
  • The Mantle of Agency (Lisa Kahn)

    The Mantle of Agency (Lisa Kahn)
    2026/06/30
    In this soul-stirring episode, Gail Doby welcomes long-term collaborator and peer Lisa Kahn back to the podcast to look at the cartography of a 12-year professional relationship. Lisa reflects on her multi-generational roots in design, her early days as an in-house designer for Lutron Electronics, and the critical moment she hit deep-seated burnout. The heart of the episode explores the anatomy of a business turnaround. Lisa shares an unforgettable strategy from 2009 when, staring down a zero-cash payroll nightmare and a dropped design deposit, she used her credit card to buy 50 blank notes. By writing unprompted, radical “love letters” of gratitude to 50 critical mentors and allies, she completely shifted her financial energy current—resulting in a $3 million influx of business in under 60 days without asking for a single project. Furthermore, Lisa and Gail lean into a beautiful, vulnerable space regarding their concurrent work on trauma processing, addressing the dark shadows, and moving beyond the exhausting habits of people-pleasing and self-protection. In this episode, you’ll hear about: The Academic Rejection: Why Lisa initially explored transitioning to design education, only to realize the traditional structure of academia couldn’t contain her vision.Rethinking How We Work: Gail’s pivotal advice to Lisa that it wasn’t the interior design profession burning her out, but the structural architecture of how she was executing her business.Sanctuary as a Tool for Resilience: Moving past the superficiality of aesthetics to design rooms that physically cradle the human nervous system through ritual, incense, and sound.A Survivor’s Light: Lisa opens up about coming to terms with surviving past domestic violence, and how she translates that survival into a profound message of healing through physical environments.The Neuroscience of Aesthetics: Lisa’s current academic obsession with neuroaesthetics, sacred geometry, and Harvard’s 85-year landmark study on human connection.The Barn at Sanctuary Naples: A breakdown of Lisa’s incoming 5-acre Florida headquarters, detailing workshop spaces, content studios, an outdoor music amphitheater, and immersive live learning retreats. Lisa has been a guest on the podcast before. Listen back to her previous episode, “Grow As You Go or No?”, here. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e2-shownotes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFhmiZdHZWw Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBYWelcome to the Creative Genius Podcast. Lisa, this is number three for us. We’ve done two others before. Yes. LISA KAHNI have loved both, so honored to be back. GAIL DOBYIt’s great to have you back. And it’s so interesting ’cause I looked back at your records to see when you and I met and it was January twentieth, two thousand fourteen. LISA KAHNHow about that? It’s been a hot minute. GAIL DOBYA hot minute. Hot 12 minutes. Twelve more minutes. Yeah. Well, I thought we would just kind of meander down a path today. So we’ll see where this path takes us. And I’d love for you to just take it where you’d like to. So let’s start first with how you got into design. LISA KAHNYeah. LISA KAHNWell, I actually originally got into design because honestly, I grew up in a family business and my mom is and was a designer. And so, you know, it was a very natural thing for me to do. you know, design was very much part of my household. You know, it was what I did on spring breaks, it was what I did on summer vacations, you know, we really all worked as a family. there were three kids in my family. And so all five of us would climb in the car during summers and drive to the business and all work there because it was also a retail store and be involved with all of that. So yeah, it was just a very natural thing for me to do. It was not actually what I thought I wanted to do. You know, my mom said to me, Lisa, you’ve got a knack for this. You really should follow design and do it. And I’m like, no way. You know, this was in Northwest Ohio. Everything was on such tight budgets and everything was At that point, you know, this was a long time ago. So Waverly was a division of Schumacher and they put out these wallpaper books that had like 12 things that all matched with borders and fabrics and everything. And that’s what you did for everybody. And I just thought to myself, if I have to be working out of these Waverly books for the rest of my life, I just don’t think I have the fortitude. but you know, I just hadn’t really been exposed. And so when I went to college and ended up changing my major from business to design, because I just realized at some point that I really needed that hands-on creative outlet every single day. it really my life went in directions. I couldn’t have imagined, you know, I ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    50 分
  • The Wide-Open Future (Mel Bean)

    The Wide-Open Future (Mel Bean)
    2026/06/23
    This week on the Creative Genius podcast, Gail Doby welcomes Mel Bean, the principal of Mel Bean Interiors, to talk about her 20-year journey through the interior design landscape and the predictability of scaling an elite firm. Mel pulls back the curtain on how a structured leadership framework—specifically partnering with an exceptional Director of Operations—unlocked a positive operational flow that allowed her to step back into her role as a visionary. She discusses overcoming limiting beliefs regarding business ownership and how deep dive financial modeling completely shifted how her company tracks profitability and projects revenue. Finally, Mel outlines how she structures a hybrid environment that gives her staff the flexibility to be deeply present for family milestones without sacrificing professional excellence. In this episode, you’ll hear about: Changing Paths: Mel’s realization a few years into college that she needed to leave to unlock her hidden creative side.Shopping vs. Designing: Breaking down the 20+ decisions that go into a single furniture piece, and why social media can be a powerful client-education tool.The Non-Billable Employee: Overcoming the fear of hiring a non-billable Director of Operations, and how that single choice can skyrocket your growth.Data Over Doubt: Why escaping isolation and swapping raw, un-redacted financial metrics with design allies across the country fuels true inspiration.“Why Not Me?”: Moving past imposter syndrome and the limiting beliefs of a non-entrepreneurial upbringing to confidently pursue massive lifestyle goals. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e1-shownotes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICPH-3mmR8Y Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBYWelcome to Creative Genius. I’m so glad you’re here, Mel. And I can’t wait for us to have this conversation. So here’s my first question for you. Who would you have or what would you have on a desert island if you were stranded? MEL BEANit’s funny that my first thought that I have is that I want my espresso machine so that I can make my morning latte. GAIL DOBYI’m sure there’s some plugins out there somewhere. MEL BEANI I’d need an ice maker then as well though, because you can’t have a hot latte on a desert GAIL DOBYWell, there you go. I like that. Okay. Well, interesting thing to think about. And I’m sure there Yeah. And I bet there might be a few people on your journey with you. Who would you have with you? MEL BEANProbably a first for you. MEL BEANWell, I would want to take my boys for sure. my sons Cooper and Chase. They are seniors in high school. And of course, other than just being obsessed with them as my children, I also think they are so much fun. So they would turn a kind of an unfortunate situation into a good time, I think. GAIL DOBYthat sounds like fun. Well, I’ve only seen them in passing on our Zoom call, so it’s really fun. MEL BEANI might be biased, but I think they’re pretty great. GAIL DOBYWell, I’m sure you feel that way as every mom should. So good for you. Well, let’s talk about your journey into being a designer. How did you get started with that? MEL BEANGosh, well, I started college dead set. Well, even in high school, I was going psych pre-med. I was good at math and science. And so I went really deep into college prep and into all of the classes that would set me up for success in that career. And it wasn’t until a couple of years into college that I started doubting that. I got into some tricky classes that I could do fine in, but I wasn’t excited about. And I started to get the concern of is this what I’m going to feel like the rest of my life? And it wasn’t immediately clear to me that I wanted to do interior design. But once I did discover it, I felt like something had clicked into place when I changed my major in my first class. And it just made me want to go back and get a do-over on I wish I’d taken the art classes in college, but I was too focused on all the college prep. I wish I’d had done these things that not only would have kind of led me to my career path sooner, but also would have just helped me to get to know myself in a different way. And so I was really thrilled to get into interior design in college. And then as quickly as I could, I got an internship so that I could see, okay, what is this really like? What is this, what is the day to day? What does it look like? I know it’s not like a HGTV show. I know that’s not the reality of this industry. And so fortunately I loved it. GAIL DOBYDid you were there any surprises when you got into it? MEL BEANSo many, I really didn’t have a lot of expectations of what it looked like. I think that’s I didn’t grow up with any interior designers in my life. And so I think that’s part of what took ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    45 分
  • Why are Women so Hard on Each Other? (Ann Feldstein)

    Why are Women so Hard on Each Other? (Ann Feldstein)
    2026/02/03
    In this episode, Gail Doby welcomes Ann Feldstein, a 25-year industry veteran and the force behind Moxie Marketing. Ann reflects on her journey from working on the De Beers “Diamonds are Forever” campaign to serving as Vice President of Communications at Kravet before launching her own agency ten years ago. The heart of the discussion focuses on Ann’s keynote research into why women often harbor judgment toward one another. They explore internalized misogyny—the unconscious adoption of sexist attitudes—and how it manifests in everything from holiday clean-up expectations to judgments about makeup and parenting. Ann also breaks down the “fairy tale complex,” explaining how classic stories like Cinderella taught young girls to view other women primarily as competition for male attention. Tune in for this conversation that is always relevant, but perhaps even more so in the female-dominated industry of interior design. In this episode, you’ll hear about: The Evolution of a Career: Ann’s 15-year tenure at Kravet and her transition to founding Moxie Marketing, which exclusively serves the interior design space.The “Karen” Label: How modern slang is used to silence women who speak up when they are unhappy or mistreated.Double Standards in Society: The contrast between how society shames young girls for their pop star fandom while celebrating men for their passion for sports teams.The Perfectionism Trap: Why women are often hesitant to take risks because they haven’t been taught that it is okay to fail or make mistakes.The Power of Succession: Ann’s observation that many women build thriving businesses but fail to create a succession plan, missing out on passive revenue and a lasting legacy.The Highlights of the Design Industry: How Gail’s experience with design clients has been primarily positive, building communities of women who are happy to collaborate instead of compete. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e10-shownotes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w6Ze2vOavk Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript And it’s so exciting to have you on the Creative Genius podcast and I am really happy to have you here today. Well, thank you so much for inviting me to be on. I’m a huge fan of The Pearl Collective and your podcast, and I’m so honored to be on. Well, thank you for being here. Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about your background and how you got into the industry to begin with. Great. This month is actually 25 years for me in the industry. I started my career at JWT and I worked on the De Beers Diamonds campaign and that was an interesting time. And then I went to a smaller boutique firm and I worked on other luxury brands. And then I met someone and fell in love and didn’t want to work agency hours. And I saw that Cravet was looking for a marketing person and I applied and I hit it off with the team and I really liked the family and they offered me a position. And it was such an interesting time for me because it was a real learning curve. And here I thought I was like sort of set in my career and I had this new learning experience. And I fully admit as a marketing person, it probably took me a good year or two to fully understand the industry works and how best to serve the interior designers. I was at Kravat for 15 years and in 2015 I stepped down as the vice president of communications and I opened Moxie Marketing and we just celebrated 10 years. Yes, 10 years. Time really does fly. At Moxie we work with brands and interior designers, anyone in the interior design space. We do only take on clients in the interior design space because that is really where my experience is. And I work with brands on marketing and sales. I work with designers on communications plans, of course, PR, events, social media, everything to help designers and brands grow their business. Hmm, how exciting. Well, and I know you’re working with some people that I happen to know and love well. So that’s really exciting. And I’m really happy to know you because I think in this industry, it’s really important to have people that grasp what we do and understand the complexities of this business because it is not a normal animal. No. It is not. It isn’t. And I think that one of the things that’s so hard is trying to find somebody who can adapt to the changing industry. And I think you have done that really well. Thank you. I’ve worked really hard at that and trying to understand the nuances of everyone’s business, not just the brands, not just the interior designers. I believe we all play an important part in the ecosystem of interior design. I also think it’s such a special industry. That’s one of the things that I did notice right away when I started 25 years ago. People were so willing to help each other. And it ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    45 分
  • Elite Assistance for Creative Geniuses (Danae Branson)

    Elite Assistance for Creative Geniuses (Danae Branson)
    2026/01/27
    This week on the Creative Genius podcast, Gail Doby sits down with Danae Branson, founder of Elite Design Assistants, to discuss the transformative power of virtual support for interior design firms. Danae shares how she transitioned from the financial sector to design and eventually recognized a massive gap in the market for high-quality, specialized virtual assistance. With a team of approximately 110 assistants—primarily based in the U.S.—Elite Design Assistants provides everything from 3D renderings and CAD drafting to administrative support and senior design roles. Danae and Gail discuss the logistics of hiring remote senior-level talent, the common pitfalls of poor communication, and the “help me, help you” mindset required to make outsourcing a profitable success. In this episode, you’ll hear about: Specialized Outsourcing: Why firms are increasingly looking for virtual senior designers and how to manage that role without “boots on the ground”.Common Mistakes: The “Lack of Communication” trap and the “Flipping the Script” error—expecting a CAD specialist to suddenly handle invoicing.The Cost of Flexibility: A breakdown of current hourly rates for virtual assistants, and what advantages freelancers have over full-time employees for certain roles.Onboarding Success: How to treat virtual assistants as true members of the team, including firm email addresses and inclusion in weekly check-ins. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e9-shownotes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIMy2E3KEU4 Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript Well, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast, Danae. And I love referring you all the time and we do this a lot. Your company is called Elite Design Assistance. So I’d really love to know your background. How did you get started in the interior design business? Yeah, so I actually started years ago, like in the early 2000s. And I just was self started kind of interior design. My husband was a contractor, but I kind of paid the bills in the financial industry. So it was, I don’t know, 2006, I actually started a virtual agency in the financial industry. By 2017, I wanted to get back into design and just to networking with different designers. that I was talking about, this is how, like my day job, so to speak. They were just curious why I did not create a virtual agency for interior designers. And so I decided I could probably do that. And when I started doing it, I had no idea it would blow up as big as it did, but that became my full-time job. And I no longer was in the financial industry and I no longer was an actual interior designer. So. I just run Elite Design Assistance and I love it. It’s super fun. I love helping interior designers, but I guess I just had a unique set of skills that kind of got me to where I am today. Well, tell us a little bit about your firm and what kind of services you provide and what is a typical thing for someone to come to you for. Sure. So we provide all sorts of services, basically anything that can be done virtually. So designers, we like to match them with virtual design assistants who have the experience, expertise that they need. So we do a lot of outsourcing with CAD drafting, 3D renders, admin sourcing, even senior designer position is becoming very popular right now. Like I said, basically anything that can be done virtually, we want to be able to help the designers. Well, absolutely. I know that I bet I’ve given you 30 referrals so far. I kind of lost count at this point, but a lot of people. And in fact, I was talking to somebody today about you. yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate it. And I love your clients. They are so great to work with. I love helping them. Yes. They are. Well, how many are on your team? We have right around 110 right now. Wow. Yeah, so located across the US. I always tell people 99.9 % of them are US based. I have a couple over in Europe, you know, just due to either military spouse or you know some other reason they’re over there temporarily. They usually are back, but occasionally people are OK with that time difference. We have worked with one of your graphics people that I is in Spain. Yes, yes you have, yeah. And she’s great. So we’ve had really good success with that. So we know because we actually use your services too. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, so you said that the common requests are a lot of CAD and you said a lot more senior designers. So why do you think that is the case? You know, I don’t know, it does ebb and flow. We kind of notice, you know, throughout the year and throughout the years, it’s certain services. I think right now everyone’s just getting super busy with projects. And those are the easiest things maybe to outsource right now is let’s get this CAD drafting going. Let’s get the 3D ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    35 分
  • Doubling Down on a Design Legacy (Mike Ufferman and Catrina Cooper)

    Doubling Down on a Design Legacy (Mike Ufferman and Catrina Cooper)
    2026/01/20
    This week on the Creative Genius podcast, Gail Doby welcomes Mike Ufferman and Catrina Cooper, the principals of Loczi Design. Mike and Catrina detail their professional pivot from the restaurant and auction house operations fields into the design world, and how they eventually came together to lead a high-growth firm in San Francisco. The conversation explores the complexities of “internal sales,” specifically how they navigated the process of buying the company from the original founder, Paige, after years of working as her leadership team. They share the raw, “brothers and sisters” dynamic of their leadership style and how professional coaching helped them move past emotional friction to achieve true operational alignment. Hear about the strategic “miracle” team of advisors—from valuation experts to business attorneys—that allowed them to complete a full company transfer in under six months. Mike and Catrina also discuss the “unreasonable” client service strategies they’ve implemented to drive their current record profits and why they are already planning their own exit strategies. Key discussion points in this episode: The Pandemic Pivot: How the team managed the dual upheaval of a global pandemic and the founder moving across the country in 2020.Alignment over Accuracy: Why learning to work as a leadership team was a bigger achievement than simply mastering markups and financial data.Buying the Legacy: The emotional weight and “healthy scramble” of New Year’s Eve signatures to officially take over the founder’s “baby”.The Non-Negotiable Paperwork: Why you must discuss the “no-fun” topics—like buy-sell agreements and key person insurance—while you are still in the honeymoon phase of partnership. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s14e8-shownotes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVzTVu0bks Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript Welcome to the Creative Genius podcast, Mike and Kat. I am so happy to see you. It’s been a while and it has been an interesting journey for you two and I can’t wait to dive into that today. First, I want to start with how did you two get into design and start working together and just tell us a little bit. I’ll start with you, Katrina. Okay. First off, thanks for having us. We’re excited to be here with you. It’s our first podcast, so we’ll do our best. Yeah, holy, you’re virgins. So how did I get into design? as you already know, Gail, I was in the restaurant business for a very, long time before I started doing this. And at some point just realized I didn’t want to do that forever. And a good friend of mine said, you know, you’re kind of a natural designer. Why don’t you go to design school? So I took that advice and went to school for a few years and then just started working and, you know, have kind of built my career from there. So it, yeah, I mean, it kind of happened nice and organically, but a little later in life maybe than other people. Okay, yeah, well I didn’t go back to school till I was 35 for design so yeah. That’s about how old I was too, yeah. And I graduated, I think, two years later. yeah, it was good to go back. I think everybody needs to decide what it is that they’re called to do. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, it’s nice to have a second career and have some to do it later in life to it was more intentional. I mean, I was able to do a lot better than I think I probably would have right out of high school. sure. This is such a different industry anyway. And of course, you’ve gone from being an employee to owning the firm. We’re going to talk about that in a couple of minutes. But Mike, about you, how did you get into design? boy, that’s a long journey for me. I grew up in Ohio in Cincinnati in this small town and went to school for business at the University of Cincinnati and worked my way through college working at a hospital there and was sure that I was gonna go on to medical school and I really wanted to work in labor and delivery. That was the field. I got accepted there and studied a little bit and just decided it wasn’t really for me. Did a couple things and ended up out in California and I was working operations for an auction house out here. At the time it was called Butterfields, it was a very famous auction house in California. Another company bought them and I was running a lot of operations. I was seeing art every day. I was just getting a master’s degree in art education every day I came to work. I fell in love with design from that. And I had… You know, a change in life happened there and a friend of mine called me while I was literally vacationing on a beach in Mexico and said, Hey, I’m starting an interior design firm, get in your car and come back up here. Uh, and I did, and I turned around and I ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    55 分