1. What is Hothouse?
Hothouse is a free professional development group 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 for designers who want more than inspiration - it’s for those ready to take action.
At the heart of my work is a theory of interior design business evolution. Over time, practices move through four distinct tiers - Tier One: Startup, Tier Two: Growing Pains, Tier Three: Maturity, Tier Four: Stardom - each with its own challenges, mindset shifts, and growth opportunities.
My coaching is designed to help you level up, to elevate your business with intention, so you’re not simply drifting forward, but actively shaping the next stage of your practice.
Wherever you are now - starting out or refining a mature studio - Hothouse brings structure, momentum, and community to help you get to the next level. 🌱
2. This Week’s Blog: Your CRM* Is Calling - Three Reasons Every Designer Should Start One Before 2026
Beaten down by Instagram? You’re not alone. Increasingly I’m seeing designers thrive not because of the algorithm, but because of the quiet work: a well-tended website, solid SEO, and a habitually nurtured CRM (*Customer/Client Relationship Management) system - a simple way of tracking the humans who are important to your business.
This week’s article shows you how to build a basic, free one that actually moves the needle.
3. Newsletter Long Read - Templates for The Three Messages Every Interior Designer Should Send In December, and Why They Set Up Your 2026 Success
Following on from this week’s blogpost, December is the single best moment in the year to nurture your client relationships, but most designers miss it because by the time they think of it, they’re overwhelmed, exhausted, or deep in installation season.
And that’s a shame, because a beautifully timed, high-touch December message does three things your Instagram feed never will.
⭐️ Why You Should Contact Clients in December
1. It deepens trust
A gentle end-of-year note says:
“I remember you.”
“I value you.”
“You matter to my studio.”
This is the Trust-Centred Studio in action: calm, thoughtful, quietly confident.
2. It positions you as organised and professional
Trust springs from belief in competence - clients want to feel they are in capable hands. A warm, timely December message tells them you think ahead, not someone scrambling in the chaos.
3. It seeds future work (without selling)
Your clients are already thinking about:
• refreshing rooms after Christmas
• sorting out spaces overwhelmed by new toys
• spring decorating
• picking up the Phase 2 conversation
A gentle note puts you back in their mental foreground, without pressure.
📮 Why Your CRM (Even a Simple One) Makes This Effortless
December is also the moment many designers suddenly wish they had a CRM…just sayin’…
Why? For the simple ability to see:
- who their past clients are
- who their current clients are
- who their warm leads are
- who might be ready for a check-in
If you had a CRM, this whole exercise would take ten minutes. If you start your CRM now, next December will feel like silk.
✉️ Three Message Templates for Past, Current, and Future Clients
GDPR first: for clients who have opted in to receiving marketing materials!
Use the bullet points or prompts below and let AI write a clean, elegant version in your voice. Draft the messages now, have them ready to send in a couple of weeks.
1. Past Clients
Theme: gratitude + gentle reconnection
Purpose: relationship building, staying memorable, signalling availability.
Message elements:
• grateful acknowledgement
• a moment or memory from the project
• warm seasonal wishes
• a soft mention that you’re opening 2026 timelines
AI prompt:
“Draft a warm, high-end December message to a past interior design client. Include gratitude, a reference to our project together, a seasonal wish, and a gentle note that I’m opening my 2026 spring/summer design calendar. No sales language.”
2. Current Clients
Theme: professionalism + boundaries + clarity
Purpose: reduce anxiety, reinforce leadership, set expectations.
Message elements:
• closure dates
• what will be completed before the break
• what resumes in January
• how deliveries, access or emergencies will be managed
• a warm final line
AI prompt:
“Draft a calm, professional December message for a current interior design client. Include closure dates, what we plan to complete before the break, what will resume in January, and how deliveries or access will be handled. End on a warm but high-end note.”
3. Warm Leads / Enquiries
Theme: generous + human + non-pressured
Purpose: reopen the door, encourage a January conversation.
Message elements:
• warm seasonal note
• acknowledgement of their earlier enquiry
• no pressure - simply a January invitation
• an optional link to a project or guide
AI prompt:
“Draft a warm, non-salesy December message for someone who enquired about interior design this year. Acknowledge their interest, offer to reconnect in January, and optionally include a link to a recent project. Keep it elegant and pressure-free.”
🗂 Your “Pre-2026 CRM Reset”
If you haven’t built one yet, this is the perfect moment. Read this week’s blog for easy ways to begin.
4. Christmas Images – A Tiny Experiment with Nano Banana
In a recent blog post (linked here, and sharing how to), I presented what I got Nano Banana to produce for me in a single afternoon. It got me thinking…
This time of year always brings a flood of H&G-style features: beautiful homes dressed for Christmas. Back in spring/summer we saw the “behind the scenes” hard work of preparation and photoshoots. For those of us without a magazine’s publishing budget, I wondered… could Nano Banana Christmas-ify an existing interior?
So I tried it. In total I spent about 30 minutes messing around with this.
I used a photo of my Edinburgh flat - which is very modestly decorated - and asked Nano Banana to render a festive watercolour version. Above you see the before and after, and, here's the exact prompt I used:
Initial prompt:
“I have shared two images: one of a room I would like you to reproduce with the addition of Christmas decorations; the second is a slide with four concept images for the types of decorations to apply…”
This promprt delivered a modest dusting of Christmas. Then, the following prompt helped a lot:
Follow-up prompt:
“Please use your imagination to layer on more Christmas decorations in the spirit of British traditional Christmas design dominated by red, green, gold, and winter foliage with berries.”
Final step:
I then asked Nano Banana to render it in watercolour.
You will absolutely produce something more glamorous than mine. If you need a Christmas image - maybe based on something in your portfolio, and to send out with those seasonal messages? - give it a go 👍.
5. Coming Up in Hothouse: Webinar – Collaborating with a Kitchen Designer
Thursday 27 November, 1pm (UK time)
This month I’ll be joined by Danielle Kudmany, founder of Liate Design. Danielle is an aesthetic perfectionist with a background in architecture. Her ability to combine beauty and function, with a straight-forward pragmatism makes her a top-notch collaborator.
In this practical session, Danielle will walk you through:
• what a specialist kitchen designer brings to your project
• the creative benefits
• the practicalities of specification and supply
• how collaboration can make your work more profitable and far less stressful
If you’ve ever found kitchen projects a bit daunting, this will be the session that changes everything.
Find the link to join under the 'Events' tab in Hothouse.
6. Fees, Charging, and the Tiers That Matter
This week I spoke to a brilliant audience of BIID members on fees and charging. If you missed it, all the content is also available through my new, self-directed short course.
For the BIID I added a brand-new section on choosing the right pricing strategy for your tier of business development. Regular readers know my focus on tiers of practice (read more about it here). It’s vital to charge using a strategy aligned with your developmental stage. If you’re currently Tier One (Startup), don’t make the mistake of adopting a Tier Four (Stardom) charging model.
I also shared this additional layer of advice on Instagram - find it here.
7. A Favour
If you know another designer who’d enjoy this newsletter, please share it. It helps me reach the designers who benefit most. If this comes to you by email, click the link at the top to 'view in browser', and use the share button at the top of the browser version. Thank you for your support. 💛
8. Work With Me: Introducing the 2026 Course Ecosystem (Now Open for Booking)
🥁 Big drumroll 🥁: If you’re ready to make 2026 your most intentional, confident, and commercially successful year yet, my full programme of courses and coaching is now live, some with early-bird prices available. They are all on my website!
Here’s the full ecosystem, aligned to the four tiers of business growth:
• Business in a Box (Tier 1 - Startup)
14 September – 11 December 2026
COURSE: A 12-week live cohort that gets you launched fast, without overwhelm or perfectionism. Clear structure, weekly progression, and a small cohort of fellow founders.
• Recipe for Success Bootcamp (Tier 2–4 - Growing, Maturing, Expanding)
COURSE: My original 5-week accelerator. A live hybrid programme of group learning, hive-mind collaboration, and private, intensive 1:1 strategy sessions. Align your brand, pricing, systems, marketing, and client journey for genuine next-level growth.
• The Designers’ Boardroom (Tier 2–4 - Growing - Stardom)
GROUP MEETINGS: Monthly meetings for a group of max 10 designers working together for 12 months - a regular gym workout for your business. Strategic discussions, accountability, targets, and a circle of peers who keep you consistent and sharp. Book now for yourself, or contact me if you'd like to enrol a group of people, to work together with colleagues or friends. £600 up front for the year, or £55 over 12 months. Contact me to arrange payment by instalment.
• Boardroom Bespoke (All Tiers - 1:1 Mentoring)
COACHING PROGRAMME: This is my most exclusive and intensive offering, a full year of deep, personalised business planning and performance coaching - just the two of us - for designers ready for a transformative leap and who who want to be pushed - kindly. Find out more here.
• Hothouse
And, yes, Hothouse will continue to be free for all of 2026.
9. 🌱 My Week in Hothouse
Being consistent and intentional really has shaped my 2025. Setting my sights in advance, imagining what might be possible, and then charting a course has made a noticeable difference. I’m certain that if I hadn’t pushed myself out of my comfort zone, the momentum around my business simply wouldn’t have gathered in the way it has.
Much of what I write for you is a reminder to myself, too. I need a proper CRM now - my head can no longer hold everything - and I need to plan my year-end client messages.
And in the spirit of honesty, another week has passed and I still haven’t restarted my Meta Ads (my own Big Push pledge). I will. In the meantime, several other Big Pushers have written with news of real progress, which is heartening. All this dreaming; goal-setting; course-charting? It works.
10. Final Thought
I’ve been thinking this week about the role of community in a designer’s working life. So much of what we do is solitary - headphones in, head down, solving problems on our own. But just because we're notionally in competition really doesn't mean we can't collaborate.
There is enormous value in being part of a group where people are thinking about similar challenges, sharing ideas, and comparing approaches. It doesn’t need to be loud or dramatic. It simply needs your presence. The moment you step into a community and take part, the feeling of doing it all alone begins to fall away.
That’s been my experience in my Boardroom groups, and in Hothouse. It works because people participate. It’s steady, thoughtful, and genuinely useful. And it reminds me, each week, that showing up is often the thing that changes everything.
Have a super week,
Julia
Founder-Hothouse
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