From Louisville to Western NC: How Lyn Mabry Built a Pure Design Business

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:36hey there welcome to this week's episode of epic entrepreneurs i'm bill gillillian your host i am the principal at action coach business growth partners and one of the founders of the ashville business summit and i am super excited today to talk to another member of our community i'm here with lynn mabry the name of her company is designing spaces by lynn so welcome to the podcast. Lynn, tell us a little bit about you and your business. Thanks, Bill. I'm excited to be on this show, so podcast.

1:17I've been in this area for about three years. I've been in the design business for about 25. I moved here because I always wanted to live in the mountains, and I just was ready to go. So I had a great team of designers in Louisville, Kentucky, who wanted to take over my business, and that freed me to move here and start again. I didn't know what would happen with that. I just wanted to be here, and I love design. So three years later, we have built our little team, and I have two wonderful designers, three wonderful designers that work with me on my team. And we provide, we go all over Western North Carolina.

2:33Need a designer, we'll travel. So we don't have a store, which I think is a benefit. we'll shop for you wherever we find good deals and the right products for your design vision. And one of the things that I think make us different is that we don't have a store. We're not trying to sell you any of our things. uh further we don't take commissions from anything we simply are your designer and you pay us to help you um i got it okay yeah no that's great i mean a lot of people may not understand that in the design world sometimes there are commissions sometimes people buy furniture and resell it sometimes there's a lot of ways to to to play the game and you guys are pure design you're just getting paid for your expertise and for uh your experience and for your eye and for making things look great so yes yeah no i like it well let me ask you a few questions you this is a great question for you because you've actually started from square one again And I mean, you had a business and then you, like you said, you sold it and then you moved here and you started again.

4:12But so what are some of the lessons? Like the question actually is if you had to start from square one, what would you do differently?

4:30You know, I'm not sure. I mean, I've certainly made mistakes. But overall, would I do anything different when I started my business here?

4:52I don't think I would have. I love it. I mean, you shouldn't have to do a lot different. I mean, you learned a ton from previous business experiences. And, yeah, it's interesting. I think I learned to trust. I love that. Trust myself and my instincts and to trust the people that I work with for and with.

5:30Yeah, I am a person that operates good or bad sort of gut. There's a gut feeling about things. And I think in a way that's made me a good designer because you have gut feelings about things and you have them about space. You know, you can walk in someplace and go, what's not right here? What doesn't feel right? And I think customers come to us and say things like, I don't know what's wrong with this living room, but it just never has been right. And, yeah, I think that's our lane. I think we know how to do that, but I'm not sure I answered your question. But I think the only thing I might have done differently is in the part of our business.

6:40And I haven't, we didn't talk about this, but we offer a range of skills from pure interior design to renovation and remodel design to staging. and I've done a lot of renovation and remodel design in my career. The same with interior design. Staging was huge in Louisville, Kentucky. I moved here and it three years ago wasn't so huge. So I might have approached that differently. I might have approached offering more of a learning curve maybe to the realtors about the positives of the staging techniques. you know yeah yeah no and i got it well i mean a few things that's great well you kind of answered my next question which is one of your learnings as an owner and an employer and you said that you you basically you've learned to trust which i love that because i think that's hard for business owners yeah i think it is too uh and it has been i can micromanage with the best of them And I have some talented women.

8:25Oh, my gosh. And I just need to let them do their thing. Yeah, get out of the way. Well, I want to be involved. I want to be there to be supportive. I want to be there if there's a question or concern. But no, I need to step out. They can do it. they are really good yeah i love that i love that hey so what are some of the common misconceptions that people have about running a business about running a business not design but just in yeah just in general yeah general business that you got a lot of free time if you run your own show So, you know, you can take off whenever you want. You know, you get to boss everybody around.

9:20That you make a lot of money. How about that one? You know. Yeah. No. Yeah. Maybe you do when you get to the big time. But, you know, for most average entrepreneurs, business owners, small business owners, we work 24-7. And I'm not complaining. Clearly, I must love it. But we work 24-7. If the phone rings, I answer it. I don't care when it is. Right. And if somebody needs my help in there, 45 minutes away, I'll go. You know, I just do it. Yeah. I just do it. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, sometimes it, I mean, I've seen plenty of people that were running, were sort of the general manager of a company and then they buy the company and they have no idea like what, what the general manager is different than, than actually running and owning.

10:24It's an interesting thing. So what do you attribute your growth to?

10:40I, first of all, what a great community this is. Yeah. What a open, welcoming, how can I help you community. Oh, my gosh. I really feel that way. But I am driven. I love what I do. Maybe that's it. But I absolutely love this craft. and I love helping people. I love doing stuff that they can't do, seeing stuff they can't see. I love that. And so I think I'm driven and my drive, I'm driven anyway, But I can funnel this love of this craft into that drive. And I mean, when I first got here, I literally walked the streets of Hendersonville with my resume and some information on my little company of two then, one and a half.

12:18And I just knocked on doors. I just called every realtor that I could get a hold of and introduce myself. I went to all the furniture stores. I joined everything. I love that. And I joined everything. And I'll say something else. I'm probably most of the time the oldest person in the room. And sometimes that might feel intimidating, but it's also a great way to get noticed. yeah well if you're new in a community i mean you got to get out right yeah and i mean if i mean you came here from louisville not knowing at least very many people i don't know i knew one person i had a client in brevard right so yeah yeah yeah one client and you yeah so you like you say you know one person you got to get to know some people the only way to get to know is get out and get networking and you know meet some people and yeah you didn't want to quit working so that's pretty hard somebody like you who and me who are both driven i i can appreciate being able to see things other people can't see i'm one of those guys that can't see it i definitely can't see it until it's on the wall i mean you need to paint it before i can tell what whether whether whether i mean you can't just give me a color sample that ain't gonna work i gotta i have to trust i mean i you know out there because I'm one of those people that, that, that needs what you have, that eye and that, that, that capability.

14:04So, um, so the personal life, business life, it sounds like it's all mixed together. How do you, is there any balance there? How do you, how do you look at that? Um, it's all mixed together for the good or the bad. I have, uh, I moved here for the love of the mountains. I love to hike. I love animals. I lost my beloved dog right before I left Louisville. I volunteer for several animal nonprofits, so that's one way. And hiking and being outdoors is something that means a lot to me. so I work real hard at carving out time to do those things. And I'm an introvert, actually, but we all need friends.

15:30And so besides volunteering and hiking, I really try to, you know, have friends here that you go out to dinner and, you know, you talk about your work or their life or my life. and you become friends, which is very meaningful for me. And then my family's huge to me. I have two kids and three grandkids, an ex-husband I'm close to. And so I carve out time to go to where they are and spend time with them. But I work all the time. I take calls. I do stuff, but I'm there. I spend time with them. We're going to go in a couple of weeks to look at college for my youngest granddaughter. Not my youngest, my middle granddaughter.

16:46and um so i i work real hard at staying present with my family and doing giving back so yeah no i love it yeah i mean you're staying connected loving i think a lot of people have the wrong idea about introverts i mean introverts is about where you get your energy it doesn't mean you don't yeah it doesn't mean you don't like people they just it just means you know at some point you got to go recharge somewhere which might mean walking around in the hills by yourself right oh yeah yeah no i no i love that i love that so what qualities do you look for in team members uh a love of the craft for for me a love of the craft

17:44contrary to what people think designers do not you know just come home with piles of money every day it is hard work and we spend a lot of time traveling so i look for people where like me, they just want to do this. They just, it is their

18:16secret power. Their superpower. It's their, I look for that. Then I look for somebody that cares about

18:35honesty,

18:39being very transparent and upfront.

18:46I look for somebody that can do that. I'm a very, you see what you get person. I really try to find people that are like that. And the third thing I always look for is complementary skills. What they can offer I'm not good at. Yeah, I love that. And sometimes how that works is then I'm good at what they're not. And there is a team approach to our projects. We almost always go in pairs. I'm usually the other person. And, I mean, there's two of us. And, you know, they have strengths I don't have, and usually I have strengths they don't. Usually works that way. And that's lovely. It's just like a great benefit to our clients because two heads are better than one.

19:59And, yeah, so those, if that answers your question. No, no, I think it's great. I think that's wonderful. I mean, if everybody on the team was just like you, it'd be chaos, right? Right. It would be chaos. Exactly. You know, I like that. So what words of advice would you give to other business owners who are looking to grow?

20:50issue. Whatever your business is, you got to know you really can help. You're really giving, you really have a service to offer. I think whether it's selling us so far, being a coach, Sure. You've got you have to believe in it yourself. So there's the first thing. And then I think you have to be fearless. You just have to be fearless and you have to be OK with rejection. It's just part of the journey. You just you know, not everybody is going to be crazy about you. Not everybody thinks your product is what they need, and you've got to be open to validating their feedback. Yeah. No, I love that.

21:51I love that. I mean, you know, rejection is a form of feedback. I mean, yeah, maybe they're not a good fit. Maybe it's just that you're not a good fit for them. Maybe there's something you need to learn. Exactly. It's a hard thing to do to say thank you to a no, but there is a gift in everything, the good and the bad. There's a gift in every rejection. Yeah, I mean, and frankly, you're not going to, not everybody's going to buy. That's just the, you can talk to, I mean, you can have a very high close rate, but not everybody's going to buy. It's just not reasonable. It's not reasonable. And sometimes it's baffling.

22:38You're like, what? But you know what? That didn't make any sense, but it made sense to them. Yeah. Well, let me just say one more thing that I think is a key to success. And it's caring about that person. really caring about that other person, that person across the desk, that person across the counter, that person when we walk into their homes. You know, you got to genuinely, authentically care about that person. I agree. And people feel that. They just feel it. Yeah, they know if you're there for you. Yeah. And not them. Yeah. Yeah, it makes no sense. It is. People are not stupid, and we have an innate sense.

23:42And actually, women are better at this than men. But, you know, if they got it, they're going to know. They're going to have that knowledge. If they're being played, they know it. Oh, God. Oh, God. I think they come at it thinking that they might get played. And so, I mean, they're actually coming in with that bias. So you really have to overcome it. I love that. So what's the next thing, the next big thing for Lynn and designing spaces by Lynn? What's the next thing?

24:17Well, I think I want to get more into the aging in place or I don't know how to say it. No, no, there's actually an aging in place designation for builders. Oh, I know. Yeah, and I know about that, and we do some of that. But what I was trying to say and can't think of the term is getting more into that market. Like I've joined in a group of professionals that work with seniors. And we do work with builders and, well, not builders, remodelers to augment houses for aging in place. We do that. We also work with people downsizing and moving in to some of the independent communities around here. And I'd like to expand on that.

25:38We've done a couple of fun projects where we've literally taken folks from a big house somewhere and helped them pick what could fit into their new house or apartment or whatever in an independent living campus. us. And we, I want to do more than that, more of that. I think we, first of all, that's my age group, but I, and I did it, I downsized. And I think we can be really helpful to seniors that this is hard. It is hard. It is hard whether you're augmenting your lovely house and making the doors bigger, whatever you have to do, or you are moving into someplace different, we can help. So I'm trying to get into that.

26:45So that's one of my kind of new areas. And we would love to work with, we do work with one wonderful builder and do the design work for them and the selection work with their clients as they're building new houses. But I think we have something to offer contractors and new construction, but remodel. Let us do the design portion. Let us do that part. And you guys take care of the rest of it. We all kind of have our lane. So those areas. No, I like it. Yeah, most builders are looking – I have a lot of clients that are builders and remodelers. Most of the builders want to just build stuff. Yeah. And remodel and do that sort of thing.

27:53They don't actually want to do the design. Design's like one of the hard parts for them. Yeah. I mean, most of them. Some of them have that capability. Some of them have that eye or have a design background, but most of them don't. So lastly, what's the best way for somebody to get a hold of Lynn or get a hold of your team? Well, they can get a hold of me. I take all calls, the initial calls when people have questions, or they can go to our website and there's an inquiry form. So my direct number is 502-333-2338. And my website is, you know, www.designingspacesbylynn.com. And there's a place for an inquiry.

28:50and that goes straight to my email. And my email is Lynn with one N at designingspacesbylynn.com. So any three of those ways is great. Yeah, just so people know, that's designingspacesbylynn.com. Just one N. Just one N. Yeah, just one N. And it's Lynn at designingspacesbylynn.com. So we'll include that in show notes, but we'll have it in there. Hey, fantastic. This has been great. Hey, we really love having you as part of our community and love what you're doing and excited that you're back building a business here in Western North Carolina. Well, thank you. And I am grateful and flattered to be on your show.

29:41Thanks, Bill. Yeah, thanks, Len. And until next time, all the best. hey thanks for listening to the epic entrepreneurs podcast here's three things that you can do number one remember to subscribe to the podcast it takes very little effort on your part it's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs plus you you guys know how it works the more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly.

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