If your calendar is full, adding people can feel like the obvious next step. Interior designer Kelly Finley founded Joy Street Design and grew it into a firm with a large staff and many projects, as Business of Home reported. Then she decided to be more selective about the projects, clients, and charitable work she took on. She no longer wanted to run the larger business she had built.
Expansion costs had risen, and the home boom had faded. Finley has not published a profit comparison showing that a smaller model earns more. Her decision gives you a question to ask before hiring: which work are you making room for?
Name the work you want more of
More projects can mean more revenue. You may also need another hire and more management time, leaving fewer hours for your own design work. Write down what the extra work is meant to provide before taking it on.
Define what “better projects” means for you: a higher minimum fee, fuller scopes, more of the work you want in your portfolio, or enough time to photograph finished rooms. If you want more design time, count the hours you spend supervising and fixing work across projects.
Use that definition when you decide which inquiries to accept.
Price the team a larger calendar needs
A bigger team can take on work you cannot deliver alone. You also need to cover payroll, management time, and enough signed projects to keep everyone busy.
Compare the full cost of that team with the fees and projects it makes possible. Include your management hours and the fixed costs that remain during a quiet month. A project count by itself cannot tell you whether the larger studio is worth running.
Finley’s current headcount and the profit effect of her change are not reported in the published account. Check your own numbers before you change the size of your studio.
Choose the projects first. Then work out the team they require.
Make room by declining the wrong projects
If you reduce headcount but keep the same project load, more work comes back to you. Look at the calendar before you change the team.
Set a minimum scope and fee, then decide which kinds of project deserve time on your calendar. The minimum saves you time only if you decline work below it.
Check what each service asks of your team. Procurement and installation may need more coordination than your proposal made visible. Price those hours or stop offering work that depends on your unpaid time.
Count your active projects by phase. A calendar full of concept work needs different staffing from one full of installations. Plan around the work due in your studio.
Check what the smaller model earns and costs
Compare these numbers before and after you change the mix of work:
- gross margin by project or service;
- principal hours spent on delivery and management;
- fixed team and operating costs;
- value and fit of the work entering the pipeline;
- cash required during long projects;
- time or money committed to the purpose you want to fund.
They will not all move in the same direction. A project you love may earn a lower margin. Fewer staff may save fixed costs while adding to your delivery hours. Decide which trade you can afford using your own figures.
Put the work beyond your studio into the fee
Finley’s nonprofit, Joy Street Initiative, had relied on excess firm profits. As that became less sustainable, she changed the model: clients now pay a mandatory flat-fee donation that helps fund the nonprofit. The published account describes the funding choice; it does not establish its long-term financial result.
You may want more design time on each job or a steadier margin. Write that goal into the projects you accept, the fees you charge, and the time you reserve. Otherwise you can end up doing the same work with fewer hands.
