Hello 🍂
This is the 40th issue this year, and overall, the 90th issue of this newsletter. It is really good to be back to full strength.
September was a perfect storm: moving house and launching a new course, with the normal month's workload on top. When I look around, I see that the people who succeed are the dogged ones, who turn up consistently. I want to be one of those people, which is why it matters so much to me that this newsletter is published every single week.
The Interior Design Practice System did launch last week. The first few days were nerve-wracking, waiting for feedback on something that had been A LOT of work.
And here we are in October. Q4 is a real power quarter. The second half of December is a bit of a write-off, which means we need to act fast to make the most of it. Two things need doing: reflecting formally on the year thus far, and taking direction from this to plan the next. That way we enter 2027 prepared, like seasoned travellers with bags packed, rather than queuing for our first passport the week before we fly.
The blog is back, with notes from last week's BIID session on making a business plan do some actual work. And on Thursday, the Big Push begins.
1. A Fabulous Beast
The Practice System went live on Monday, and on Wednesday the messages began to arrive. I will share three, anonymously, because between them they say more about the course than I could.
"It's a beast! A fabulous beast. My God, what a body of work Julia. It's incredible. I'm 2 hrs in and am coming to the end of Discovery. It might take time!!"
"Received, thank you Julia, what a wealth of information to work through. I'm looking forward to a business development Christmas!"
"Just to say how BRILLIANT this is. It's beautifully designed, practical and ready to use and crucially, for someone slightly disorganised, it's all in one place! It's saved me SO much time. It makes the whole client journey feel more polished and professional, without having to reinvent the wheel."
I am delighted, and I admit they make a fair point. It is big. Eighty lessons across fourteen modules is not something to finish in a weekend, and it was never meant to be.
The System follows the design process from first enquiry to handover, and the intention is that you meet each part of it when your work with a client reaches that point. If you are about to write a fee proposal, go to the fee proposal. If site is clear and the FF&E is about to arrive, go to installation. The two hours one designer spent on Discovery were not two hours reading about Discovery. They were two hours rebuilding how she runs it.
The third message names a benefit that hadn’t actually occurred to me: it's all in one place. Most designers I work with are not disorganised, but they are working from systems assembled under pressure, one project at a time: a proposal adapted from the last proposal, an onboarding email rewritten from memory, a folder structure that made sense in 2019. Nothing is missing, exactly. It is simply scattered and inconsistent, and the scattering costs time and confidence every week. A system gathers it into one place, so that each new project starts from your best version rather than your most recent one.
And the client feels the difference. That is why nine client-facing packs are part of it. A well-run studio should be visible from the outside, and polished and professional, without having to reinvent the wheel is precisely the effect I was after.
As for a business development Christmas, I can think of worse ways to spend the quiet days at the end of December than setting up the studio you want to walk into in January. Which leads neatly into the rest of this issue.
Find out more about the Interior Design Practice System
2. The Big Push: the shape you enter the year in
Last year – on 8th December, to be precise – I took half a day to reflect on my business, and to write a review of 2025. The process delivered unexpected revelations. It showed me what was likely at different points in the year, what support I would need, and where to focus. For example, and I remember this vividly as it was a bit of a shock at the time, it said the business would be overwhelmed by May. And it was true, May was tricky, but not nearly as burdensome as it would have been without this advance warning. Without running the review, I doubt I'd have had these insights, and they made this year measurably better.
One full cycle on, I have confidence in the process, and I will be bringing it to Hothouse this quarter.
This week sees the launch of the Big Push, a free group activity that brings together ambitious and collaborative designers who appreciate the support and accountability of community. But - WARNING - our check-ins are light touch, and weeks apart: BYO determination and grit.
The Big Push comes in three parts this year.
- Finish well. Choose one thing that will be done by 31 December: something meaningful that is likely to be sidelined unless it is given particular attention. Small enough to finish, large enough to matter. What correction or addition would make a real difference to your business? We will be each other's accountability partners in this endeavour.
- Run a formal review of 2026. I will share a template for this in November, with prompts so your AI assistant can do the heavy lifting.
- Picture the after, in outline. Not the full 2027 plan, but its shape: income, hours, the kind of client, and what it should be like to live inside your business next year. What needs to change in 2027.
Our meetings are for part one, your year-end goal.
The review and the picture of 2027 will be December's work.
Design: Thursday 8 October, 10am. A preliminary meeting to talk about what makes a good Big Push goal: one that matters, that is within your control, and that can be finished by the end of December rather than merely started. Come with a shortlist, not a decision.
Declare: Thursday 22 October, 10am. After Decorex, we reconvene for pledges. Each of us names the one thing we will have done by year end, in front of people who will ask about it.
Deliver: the rest of the year. Which is where the company counts. There will be online check-ins every few weeks to cheer one another along. Dates TBA.
The joining link for both meetings will be in the Hothouse group.
ACTION: put an annual review and planning day in your calendar now, before December fills up. I will be running the Hothouse Planning Week again in January 2027, when we will build the plan on actual analysis and quality thinking.
3. This Week's Blogpost
Better, or Just Older?
Is your business better than it was a year ago, or merely older? Frustrations do not leave of their own accord. Left alone, a business accumulates practices the way a kitchen drawer accumulates contents: nothing is chosen, everything is kept.
Last week I taught strategy and business planning for the BIID, and this post is my notes from the session. The question at its heart is why so many plans die in a drawer, and what connects a plan made in January to the work of an ordinary Tuesday in October.
4. Decorex
I will be at Decorex from Monday to Wednesday, and hope to see as many old (and new) friends as time allows. If you are going, tell me, and let's find each other.
I am thrilled to have been invited by Business & Interiors to present at their Design Circles roundtable event on Monday 12th at 11am. My subject will be positioning: how to define what sets your studio apart, communicate your value clearly, and build a position that attracts the clients and projects you want.
In my work, I look at a lot of interior designers' websites, and – sad to say – this has rendered me word-blind to the adjectives we routinely trot out to describe the impact of our services. I call this identikit marketing. The net result is that designers get shopped for price: clients aren't drawn to us, they weigh us up against one another, with little to go on except how much we charge. We end up in competition, rather than joyfully absorbed in doing our own thing. At Decorex, I'll be presenting Axes of Differentiation - the aspects of practice that do set us apart, and that generate interest in the market beyond price.
More to follow on this, including the presentation itself, later in the month.
5. Coming Up in Hothouse
📆 Thursday 8 October, 10am. The Big Push: preliminary meeting. Link in the Hothouse group. All welcome
📆 Monday 12 October, 11am. Decorex. Business & Interiors Design Circles. See you there?
📆 Thursday 22 October, 10am. The Big Push: pledges. Link in the Hothouse group. Again, all welcome.
📆 Business in a Box is under way, with the Practice System built into the course.
And elsewhere, I have CPD events coming up with the BIID on 12th (AI), and 25th (fees and charging) November. I will have new materials for both.
6. My Week in Hothouse
The Interior Design Practice System is out in the world. I am so proud of it. I wish it had existed when I set up my own interior design business, and I am so glad to provide it for others.
Business in a Box entered week two, and we are in the foothills of business planning. Marketing planning and launch follow in November.
My accountability groups will come together for an Instagram relaunch workshop tomorrow. There will be another workshop next month bringing the front end of the design process under scrutiny – ensuring that we don't fumble clients between awareness and conversion, the leakiest point in the sales funnel.
And in private one-to-ones last week, I spent focused time on:
- Launch plans, once for a new designer, and later in the week for an experienced designer with a new brand.
- A project review: what went well, what could be improved.
- A two-hour systems and processes workshop: how to carefully convey a client from first encounter, through the fee proposal, and onwards to onboarding.
I'm partway through a major (and majorly expensive) overhaul of my terms and conditions, and policies. Including AI.
And now that life is relatively normal again, I'll begin onboarding as a client of a business that will take on my Instagram posting in Q4. I have admitted defeat but am excited that this will now have a life of its own. I hope this (plus Decorex and the BIID) will supercharge the data above 👆
With all of this activity, I have noticed that the way I use AI has changed. My clients know that I occupy the ethically dubious position of being a very heavy user who is also sleep-disturbingly terrified of the potential of AI. Setting the apocalyptic aside for a moment, recently I have found myself with Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini all open, dishing out chores to each of them simultaneously, so I can have three tasks running and remain productively occupied during the three or four minutes each one takes to think and respond. I wonder: how is your AI use morphing with time?
At home, the removal boxes have been sitting waiting, and I can't wait to get stuck in. I started yesterday with a deep clean of the kitchen. I want the place in good order by Christmas.
And my own Big Push? I'll bring a shortlist to Thursday's meeting, and three of the five candidates are in today's column:
- finishing the overhaul of my terms, conditions and policies
- handing over my Instagram properly, so that it has a life of its own by January
- a personal one: the flat in good order by Christmas
Additionally,
- setting a working rhythm that allows a day off each week (maybe this is part of business planning for 2027) and trips to the gym
And, a dark horse coming up on the inside:
- a new model for my business in 2027, because I’m essentially running two types of business and, in marketing terms, they don’t sit comfortably in the same frame
I’ll chose based on answers to these questions: how much does it matter, is it within my control, and can it be finished by the end of December rather than merely started? I will declare on the 22nd.
7. Final Word
Ninety Sundays, and counting. I did not set out to be dogged; I set out to turn up, and doggedness is simply what turning up looks like once you've done it ninety times. Choose your one thing for the year end, and join us to chat about it on Thursday.
Pinch punch,
Julia
Founder, Hothouse
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