Hello š
This week's theme is communication - and it is one that runs through almost everything we do as design professionals, usually without us realising it. Every document you send, every meeting you run, every caption you post on Instagram is a communication act. The question is: is it doing what you intend?
This issue brings together two strands that, on the surface, look quite different - social media marketing and client management - and asks what they have in common. The answer, it turns out, is almost everything. Both live or die by clarity of message, understanding of audience, and consistency of delivery. This week we look at all of it.
1. This weekās blog - Nobody Misbehaves In A Well-Run Room
As a design entrepreneur youāre used to wearing many hats, and in this weekās blog I present a new discipline to add to your job description, that of communications director.
A degree in communications covers rather more than most of us might expect, for example:
- Rhetoric and persuasion.
- Audience analysis - understanding not just what you want to say, but what the person receiving it needs to hear, and when.
- Narrative structure - how to take someone on a journey through unfamiliar territory without losing them.
- Crisis communication - what to say when something goes wrong, and how to say it in a way that preserves trust rather than corroding it.
- Interpersonal and organisational communication - the difference between information and understanding.
- Documentation - the art of the written record that serves both parties, not just the person who wrote it.
Look at that list and then look at your practice. The brief-taking meeting is an exercise in audience analysis. The concept presentation is an exercise in narrative structure. The fee proposal is an exercise in persuasion. The difficult site conversation is crisis communication. The follow-up note is documentation in service of a relationship.
None of us trained in this. Most of us have learned it (expensively, through the occasional meltdown) or havenāt learned it and continue to absorb the cost in other ways.
This week's blog looks at the client journey through a communications lens, and asks what it would mean to audit every touchpoint in your practice not for what it delivers, but for what it says.
2. This week's webinar: Instagram for Interior Designers - What Milla Richardson Wants You to Know
If you missed Wednesday's webinar with Milla Richardson of Pink Storm Social, make time to watch the recording on YouTube - it was a rich presentation with something for everyone. You'll be glad you did!
Milla's central argument is deceptively simple: Instagram is a strategic tool, not a portfolio shelf. The designers who treat it as somewhere to post beautiful finished rooms are largely invisible. The ones who treat it as a communications channel - with intent, structure, and an understanding of who they are trying to reach - are the ones converting followers into clients.
Before posting: ask yourself what you are trying to achieve: visibility (reaching new people), connection (building community), or conversion (prompting someone to enquire). Each objective calls for different content, different formats, and different language. Milla's four content pillars (inspiring, connecting, visibility-focused, and converting) give you a working rotation that removes the paralysing blank-page problem of "what should I post today?"
Among other things, Milla covered -
- what matters for your bio and profile.
- the formats the algorithm currently rewards.
- how to show up
And, if the session reinforced one thing above all, it was that consistency matters more than perfection.
Milla's phrase "document, don't create" is worth pinning somewhere visible. Authentic, unpolished content from inside a working practice consistently outperforms the carefully curated finish.
Here's the link to watch the webinar.
3. Coming Up in Hothouse in April š£
This year we've been working through the Seven Pillars of Design Entrepreneurship - the key operational areas of your business, the commercial expertise you need to succeed - and in April it's the turn of Sales and Client Acquisition to take the stage.
In the coming month, we'll be digging into one of the most important - and most underestimated - skills in the communications toolkit: persuasion.
We have two webinars scheduled, and I have put links to join these in the Hothouse Facebook group. You'll find them under the 'Events' tab.
- 11.30am UK, Tuesday 14th April - Setting the scene - theory
- 2.00pm UK, Tuesday 28th April - Practical application
Get the dates in your diary, and let me know you'll be there by clicking the 'going' button under the Event in the Hothouse group.
4. From the Founder
I briefly shared something personal on Instagram this week - a story about my future self.
A few years ago I was dreading my next milestone birthday, sensing it might only serve to mark a downward trajectory. So I did what designers do: I decided to design it instead. Who is my 60-year-old self? What does her life look like? What has she shed that no longer serves her, and what has she built, or built up, that wasn't there before?
The project has three legs - work, body, mind - and a strategy for each. It is very much in progress, across all three fronts. As a result, I can tell you that I am now genuinely, unreservedly excited to turn 60. I told one of my groups this week that I can't wait. Given what's in store, I mean it completely.
I am sharing it here because it feels intrinsic to everything I do in Hothouse. We talk a lot about building practices worth having. This is the same conversation, one level up.
5. Recipe For Success Business Bootcamp: 20 April - 22 May, 2026
The most successful designers I work with share a few things in common. They have a clear vision of their unique business proposition. They have marketing plans that speak directly to their ideal clients, in the places those clients actually spend time. And they have business strategies that map the next three to five years, with growth designed in from the start.
The result of all of that clarity is something less obvious but just as valuable: calm. I posted on Instagram this week that "Calm is a business strategy". I meant it. When you have clear vision, clear plans, and a clear direction, you can tune out the noise and focus on the work that actually matters.
This is what we build in Bootcamp - together in groupwork, and in 1-2-1s with me, over five weeks, starting 20 April.
If you have been meaning to get this foundational work done, this is the moment, it only runs once a year.
Learn more here, or contact me to chat about the programme.
6. My Week in Hothouse
As regular readers know, every week I share KPIs from my business.
- I believe in the power of strategising, planning, setting goals and targets.
- I believe that consistent application delivers success. Guaranteed.
- I believe in the power of accountability to keep you on track, and that regular measuring stops you drifting.
This marvellous group is my accountability partner...thank you :-)
We are in week #63 of Hothouse. Here is this week's data:
For anyone playing along, it is the final week of Q1, which means it is time to crunch three months' worth of data, look at what worked, and be honest about what did not. Here are some stats for this quarter's growth:
Q1 - The headline: events drove growth; content maintained it.
Without the January Hothouse Planning Event and the BIID Fees webinar, the quarter would show modest, unspectacular progress across every metric. The lesson I am taking into Q2 is that if I want faster growth, structured acquisition events need to be part of the mix.
A few things I am being direct with myself about. My mailing list, at 358, is too small for the business I am building. A coaching practice running a cohort model needs a stronger pipeline than that, and organic growth alone will not deliver it. List growth becomes a primary metric in Q2, not a secondary one. Meta ads restart in Q2, and I am expecting that to make a material difference.
Instagram is another honest conversation. Fifteen posts in thirteen weeks is not a content strategy, it is occasional presence. Given that I am tracking it as a metric, I need to show up for it properly. Millaās webinar was lucky timing for me - I need to apply myself here. My clients are on Instagram.
What did work, worked consistently. The newsletter went out every single week. Worthiness is trending upward (I am actively working on mindset - it's part of my 60th birthday prep, and I know it's having an effect). Hothouse is growing steadily. YouTube is growing faster proportionally than anything else. So, the foundations are sound, and with more committed attention to Instagram, continued effort on LinkedIn, and Meta ads in the mix, Q2 should look noticeably different.
I set myself a five-week challenge recently to reverse the red out of the data (this was week four). It has succeeded in helping me apply myself more diligently, and it has delivered improved growth. One more push on Instagram and LinkedIn this week, and I am aiming for a full row of green before the five weeks are up.
Final Thought
This is the last issue of Q1. It feels like a natural moment to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Three months in, and the challenge running through everything we've covered is this:
How well are you representing yourself and your practice to the people who matter? In your pricing, in your processes, in your paperwork, in your Instagram grid, in the way you walk a client through an unfamiliar experience, in the way you show up as founder?
All of this is communication. All of it either builds confidence, or quietly erodes it. And in our industry, confidence and trust is everything.
The good news is that communication is a learnable discipline. You do not need a degree in it. And you can improve one document at at time. You need the habit of asking, before you send, before you post, before you speak: why am I doing this - what do I want to achieve? What will this person actually receive?
Not what do I mean, but - what will they actually hear?
We are heading into the Easter hols - I hope you have downtime planned. I know that many of my designer clients are feeling jaded after a strong start to 2026. We canāt pour from an empty cup, let's make sure to carve out time for self-care too.
Very best wishes
Julia
Founder - Hothouse
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