1. Welcome!
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. First and foremost, I write this to support a growing network of professional, and ambitious!, interior designers. It is a weekly collection of ideas, reflections and resources inspired by the conversations I have with designers through my coaching and course delivery.
This newsletter is also a central part of the commitment I made to my business for 2025: to show up consistently, week in, week out. I believe deeply that consistency is one of the greatest contributors to long-term success. Showing up builds momentum. Momentum builds results.
2. What is Hothouse?
Hothouse is a free professional development group (hosted on Facebook), a hub for ambitious interior designers, built around the Hothouse Method of Business Growth: Design – Declare – Deliver.
✨ Design – we plan our businesses with care and creativity
✨ Declare – we set bold goals and targets in public
✨ Deliver – we track progress and celebrate results
Hothouse is not just about being a great designer. It focuses equally on becoming a solid entrepreneur and an embodied founder with presence, confidence and clarity. It is for designers who are ready to take action.
Inside Hothouse, you will find links to useful documents, monthly webinars, live short courses, shared resources and lively discussions with peers.
At the heart of all my work is a theory of business evolution. Interior design practices tend to move through four tiers:
Tier One – Startup
Tier Two – Growing Pains
Tier Three – Maturity
Tier Four – Stardom
Each tier brings its own mindset shifts, challenges and opportunities for growth.
Wherever you are now, whether you are just launching or refining a mature practice, Hothouse brings structure, momentum and community to help you move to the next level. 🌱
3. This Week’s Blog - 🌟 The Seven Competencies of a Successful Design Studio - How Do You Score? 🌟
You might be growing your design skills… but are you attending to the areas that actually determine your studio’s commercial success?
This week’s blog explores the seven core competencies that underpin every thriving studio. Curious where your strengths... and blind spots ...really lie?
4. LONG READ - Designing for the Hero: What StoryBrand and Matthew Williamson Teach Us About Asking Better Questions
Last week in Business in a Box, we had a brilliant conversation about the preliminary meeting: specifically, the power of the questions designers ask before they ever start designing. We explored the practical questions (scope, budget, timelines, constraints) and also the conceptual questions, the kind that unlock a client’s identity, desires and self-perception.
It is the conceptual layer that often wins the client’s trust and shapes the most successful designs.
Donald Miller’s StoryBrand
In his book StoryBrand, Miller argues:
People do not buy products or services. They buy a story in which they are the hero.
In practice, this means:
• Clients are not looking to enter your story
• They want help stepping more fully into their own
• The designer is not the protagonist - the client is
• Your role is to act as guide, supporting their transformation
A beautifully designed home is not just aesthetic. It is an identity statement. Clients buy interior design because it allows them to live a more elevated version of themselves.
Why Matthew Williamson’s Questions Work
In his book Living Bright, Matthew Williamson’s shares the 20 questions he asks interior design clients when taking the brief. To your clients they might seem indulgent: memories, travel, favourite outfits, scents. What role do they play in getting you to a decorative scheme?
But these questions are about identity and self-story.
They invite the client to:
• reminisce
• narrate formative moments
• recall scenes where they felt most themselves
• share times when they felt confident, joyful or admired
He is essentially asking:
“Tell me the story in which you were the hero, so I can build a home that keeps you in that story every day.”
The answers to Matthew Williamson's questions help you construct a unique and compelling story with your hero-client at its heart.
This depth of preparation enables a pitch that resonates emotionally while reassuring intellectually. Read on to see why this matters and where this framing should sit within a compelling proposal.
I covered Matthew Williamson's 20 questions in this webinar (around 9 minutes 3 seconds) on selling to ultra high net worth clients.
5. Coming Up in Hothouse - 📅 Webinar - Collaborating with a Kitchen Designer
Thursday 27 November, 1pm (UK time)
This month I’m joined by Danielle Kudmany, founder of Liate Design – an accomplished kitchen designer who blends aesthetic sensitivity with pragmatic, straight-talking clarity.
A perfectionist with big-picture vision and meticulous attention to detail, Danielle designs beautiful, functional interiors and supports interior designers with flexible, smart solutions across a range of price points.
In this live session she will demystify what it means to work with a specialist kitchen designer – from creative collaboration, to specification and supply, to client management.
If you have ever found kitchens confusing, overwhelming or an area where you'd rather limit your responsibility… this session is designed for you.
Find the link to join under 'Events' in the Hothouse Group.
6. Heart or Head? The Psychology Behind How Clients Say 'Yes!'
Each of us naturally leans either towards the heart (emotion, intuition, excitement) or the head (logic, detail, reassurance). We often do not notice our bias - but clients certainly feel it. You might notice it in your personal relationships - one of you is more 'balloon', the other more 'string'.
Dual-Process Theory: How Humans Think
In psychology, this is known as Dual-Process Theory.
System 1: The Heart
Fast. Emotional. Intuitive.
This system falls in love with the vision and the lifestyle. It wants beauty, harmony and transformation. It needs to feel seen and understood.
System 2: The Head
Slow. Analytical. Logical.
This system checks the proposal, studies the process and justifies the decision. It needs clarity and safety.
Interior design purchases are made by System 1, then justified by System 2.
🤔 If you only appeal to the heart, clients may love you but hesitate.
🤔 If you only appeal to the head, they may understand you but feel no desire to move forward.
🤗 The strongest proposals do both.
A Self-Check for Your Next Pitch / Fee Proposal
Ask yourself:
• Have I made their heart sing? And,
• Have I given their head permission to say yes?
When you master this dual appeal, clients feel emotionally excited and completely safe investing in you.
7. A Favour
If you enjoy this newsletter, please support me by sharing it with other designer entrepreneurs. Spreading the word helps enormously.
If you receive it via email, you can click the link at the top 'View in Browser', and from browser view, you'll find the 'share' button.
Thank you so much. 🌸
8. BIID Fees and Charging
This month’s BIID webinar prompted many follow-up questions, particularly around procurement and supply, whether acting as agent or principal. The BIID has an excellent half-hour session (led by HCR Law) dedicated to this exact topic.
Highly recommended viewing – watch it here.
9. 🌱 My Week in Hothouse
We were on the move this week - after a full month working from Turin, we are back home in Andalusia for a while. I am always slightly surprised (and touched) how interested people are in our digital nomad lifestyle. For both of us, it represents something important: the belief that you can build a serious, committed business while also living as if life were short and precious.
Turin was a productive base – it has the laid-back lifestyle you find in major - but not capital - cities, beautiful architecture, the backdrop of the alps, it's a city with distinct personality that's excited by its future. Now we have returned to sunshine, mountains (eek - I haven't walked uphill since we left!) and the comforting familiarity of home.
Normal pace resumes next week… yes, I am going to restart those Meta ads....just in time for sending the final reminder to participants in THE BIG PUSH!
10. How to Work With Me in 2026
Visit my website to see how I can support you and your business in 2026.
I have dedicated programmes designed around the four tiers of business evolution:
• Business in a Box – for Tier One startups
• Recipe for Success Bootcamp – for Tiers Two and Three
• Boardroom Bespoke – for designers who want my focused attention for the whole year and to perform optimally in 2026 (Tiers One to Four inclusive)
You will also find:
• One-to-One Coaching – ad-hoc sessions, or six-session blocks (pay for five, get six)
• Self-Directed Courses – short, affordable, self-paced learning on topics like Fees & Charging, with Time Management and Selling to UHNW Clients coming soon
🌸 Open to All Designers
Hothouse remains free for 2026 and brings the whole community together via Facebook, YouTube and this newsletter.
11. Final Thought
🔥 Heart and Head: The Hidden Symmetry of All Creative Work
Every successful design practice is built on a paradox. You must be sensitive enough to understand a client’s inner world, yet structured enough to lead them with clarity.
You need the imagination to create a life they can step into, and the discipline to deliver it with precision.
Heart without head is chaos. Head without heart is forgettable. But when you bring both into alignment, something powerful happens. Clients do not just say yes, they stay, they return, they refer. They trust you with their story. And trust is everything in this business.
I hope the last week of November is kind to you 🙂
Julia
Founder - Hothouse
Responses