EP 494 | How to Build an Interior Design Team That Doesn't Depend on You with Shelli Warren

Speaker A: I had such a fun weekend. I hosted a designer edit, which is. You won't know what that is. Who would know what that is? But I know what that is. I invited a whole bunch of interior design friends to come from all over, bring all their inventory, all their extra back room overstock stuff, pillows, fabrics, furniture, and sell it for one day in cremart. O my gosh, it was a hoot. And I got rid of so much stuff, which was amazing. And, uh, got to hang out with fabulous interior design professionals like you. And a woman came up to me and she had a copy of my very first book. I should have taken a picture of it. I'm terrible at the whole social media thing. I never think of it. I'm too busy having fun. But her book was destroyed. It had a million, uh, post it notes in it, and she'd written all over it and it was all dirty and, oh, my God, we hugged it out. Uh, she bought it like 20 years ago, the very first edition. That was really fun. And another person came up to me and said, do you know how you say on every show, hey, you fabulous interior design professional? And I said, yeah. She goes, I love that. I need that. I just can't. I can't wait to hear you say that. So, hey, you fabulous interior design professional. Welcome to business of design. Uh, you know what? I freaking love this job. I love the people I get to meet, like you, like the ones I met at my sale this weekend. And I find it so interesting that so many interior design professionals think the hardest part of running an interior design firm is finding clients. That wasn't the case for me, um, just in my particular situation because I had so much media exposure. The hardest part, without question, was getting and keeping, because that's important, too. Really good people I hired too quickly. I hired because I was desperate. I was always desperate when someone quit. And the thing is, I just hired the most lovely, amazing, talented people and then I had to watch them leave. And, and every single resignation felt like a personal failure, uh, an embarrassing rejection. You know, I convinced myself that everybody else knew how to build a team and there was just something wrong with me. And, uh, I'm telling you, if you've ever felt that way, you are not alone. You look around at some firms and you see long sticks, employees, and maybe you think everything is seamless and the operations are running smoothly and you wonder, why can't I do this? What's wrong with me? And meanwhile, if you're anything like I was, you're working evenings you're answering every single email, you're approving every single decision, you're running every installation. You're trying to be the interior designer, the bookkeeper, the project manager, the HR department, you know, and keep the office clean at the same time. Right? And on top of that, we want a family life. I mean, I love my family, right? And friends and yoga and massage, all that stuff. Just freaking exhausting, right? I did it for so long. And you know, the cruel, cruel irony is the better your business becomes and the more success you have, the, uh, worse it gets because you have more clients and more projects and, and more visibility and more pressure. And then one day you realize, I just built this crazy, low functioning business that can't run without me. And, uh, I'm so happy for you all to meet today's guest, Shelly Warren. She's a leadership coach. She works with service based business owners who have hit the wall. I'm talking about. And boy, oh boy, this episode resonated for me. I tell her at the end, it kind of gave me peach PTSD to kind of relive and think about some of those situations. Shelly says this is the burden, uh, of becoming an accidental leader. And you know, the reality is nobody teaches us how to lead people, I suppose, unless you went to a leader. Leadership management. You got your masters in leadership management or something. I learned about design. I learned the freaking color wheel. Why did we spend a second on the color wheel? I don't understand. I learned about construction, I learned about egress, I learned about some, A little about procurement, not really, but a little. And somehow I was supposed to be able to graduate and wake up one morning and know how to lead a team, how to hire, how to onboard, how to delegate, how to, you know, coach a team, how to inspire people, how to hold people accountable and create careers for super talented people who are going to stay with me longer than six months. Right. It just didn't work that way for me. I don't think it works that way for most people. So this conversation is about letting go of, uh, control without. And of course this is absolutely critical without lowering your standards. It's about building systems instead of bottlenecks. Hello, bottleneck. That was me. It's about becoming the kind of leader that people choose to follow. And maybe, you know, maybe it's important, um, as well to acknowledge that if you're struggling in this capacity, that doesn't mean you're deficient or bad. It just means you haven't been taught yet or you don't have the systems you need. It's not that hard once you do. I never, ever thought that my business would be able to run smoothly. I never thought I could make myself redundant. Uh, but if I can. You can. And you're going to love this conversation. If this resonates with you, I. I have to. I have to throw in a shameless plug for business of design. First of all, if you haven't done our business training, I swear on my life, I guarantee we will change your Life. We will 100% change your life. We will definitely change your profitability, your confidence and I. All of that. But think about purchasing the business of design operations manual. It took me a decade to write my operations manual. It's written down, it's so thorough, it's so thoughtful. It handles front of house stuff like hiring and onboarding, because those are two different things. It handles office protocols. It handles how to run projects. Whoa. Do we ever need to know how to run projects? Right. Each of the bod 15 steps is broken down into minute detail and it has every single document or template you need included. So easy to read, so easy to follow. You know how I am. It's just plain English. You and me having a conversation. You will love having it. It handles also back of house stuff like HR and even, you know, how to fire someone, how to fire an employee who's pretty good, but not good enough. Right? That's a tough one. The best part is you can have it all in a PDF and just use it and tell your staff to just ignore the fact that it says, kimberly, sell design group or business of design. And you can also have it in a Word document. So you can just dump my logo and throw yours in there and modify it as necessary. So go to businessofdesign.com Honestly, come on, treat yourself, treat your business, treat your team to a well written, super thoughtful operations manual. I swear, I'm, um. It will change your life. It really will. It's incredible value at $995. It answers a million questions about how to run your business and how to run projects, because those are two different things. And now someone who handles millions of questions for me is Cheryl Horne. She solves the majority of my systems problems, that's for sure. Our fearless director, Cheryl Horn. Quick announcements and we're going to jump into the show and you're going to meet Shel ah at more m information on Shelly Warren. Look in the show notes and let's get into it.

Speaker B: Thanks, Kimberly. Before we get into today's episode, I Want to build on what Kimberly talks about in her intro, the BOD Operations Manual. If you're looking for practical tools you can put to work immediately, the Operations Manual, along with our complete library of contracts is available in the BOD Shop. They're designed to save you time, create consistency, and help you run a more professional and more profitable business. And if you're ready to go beyond templates and documents, our BOD Signature programs provide the business training you probably should have learned in design school, but didn't. We'll show you how to streamline every stage of your projects and your business using the proven BOD 15 step project management strategies, six additional business programs, including our pricing model and Getting Paid, which is our collection and billing policies, and ongoing coaching to help you implement every system with confidence. Our mission at Business of Design is to transform the interior design industry one business at a time. That's why we've made, uh, our programs, contracts, resources, everything accessible to designers at every stage of your business. This is a small investment that directly impacts your bottom line. In fact, many designers tell us that it pays for itself over and over again. And our systems, our programs to onboard their team. And bonus, we're going to help you better understand your profit and loss, manage your cash flow, and strategically improve your revenue and profit margin so you can actually see the difference BOD systems make in your business. The results are measurable. So what are you waiting for? Visit businessofdesign.com today to explore the shop, learn more about our programs, or book a discovery call with me. We'd love to help you build the business you've already always wanted.

Speaker A: Shelley, how are you?

Speaker C: I'm doing well and I'm thrilled to be back spending some Kimberly time with you. I am such a fan. I mean, I, um, I go way back with the fan love for you. Way, way, way back when you had that amazing television show and you used to do those buying trips to Monaco, Morocco and, oh, you would be in those bazaars and you would find the most fun, fabulous things to bring back.

Speaker A: It was so fun. It's so funny that you even brought that up because this weekend I hosted a. We called it the Designer Edit. And it's a, it's kind of a flea market of a bunch of interior designers. I know all the things we have in inventory and some of the things I had in inventory were things that I picked up during my travels. And I thought, oh, for sure I'm going to sell this to a client one day. And then I never did. Uh, but there Were these two women who went with me when I used to do the trip trips. They went on a trip with me in like 1990 something. I don't know, it was crazy. So, yeah, it's been, it's been a while. I've had a, I've had a long career, which is another way of saying I'm super old. I'm 109, everybody, so listen up, I've got some wisdom.

Speaker C: Well, if you're 109, I'm 112.

Speaker A: Uh, you know what? I just think I'm getting started. We're just getting started. Who cares about any of that?

Speaker C: For sure.

Speaker A: I wish we were doing this in person because we're not too far apart from each other. And I, um, love the topic you came up with. And I have to say, knowing nothing about what you're going to talk about except for the name of the topic, I'm sure I was this topic. And the topic is how not to be an accidental leader.

Speaker B: For sure.

Speaker A: When I started my business, everything was just by accident or luck or, I don't know, the hard school of hard knocks. So tell me, tell us, tell us, Shelly, first of all, remind everybody what you do and then tell us how you came up with that topic and what we're going to learn today.

Speaker C: Well, I am a team and leadership coach for established business owners. So these are service based business owners and their biggest pain point is that they are incredibly successful. So they have built these wonderful businesses, which means they need people. And then they keep building out these teams of people and then suddenly they wake up and they'll see, say to themselves, my gosh, this people stuff is just too much for me.

Speaker A: And they go back and do their shell and they go, I'm just gonna do everything myself. And then they quit and then they go work it so they work for someone else.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker C: Is that. Yeah, it is. That happens a lot. And it's, uh, you know, it's a sad situation because she's built something beautiful based on her own area of mastery and her own ability to attract the right people towards her and has had this, you know, wonderful brand. And then she becomes overwhelmed because she simply can't do it all, you know, and then you layer on children, elder care, life partner, community leadership. Because you know what happens, Kimberly, the more successful you are, the more people want your time. So you get invited to this and could you help support this and could you be the face of this event and would you come and speak to our audience about this? And so, you know, all of those signs of success are wonderful, but they can be incredibly discouraging when you don't have the right people stacked up around you in order to support the client care that you've already built and continue to move the brand forward so things can kind of implode. And then what I've often seen is they just, as you said, they start to dial everything back. They dial everything back and yet they'll tell themselves a story that says, I suck at this. I am a terrible person. I can't work with people. I'm not a leader. I don't know how to make decisions. No one's going to come and want to build a career with me because I'm not a great leader. So they start telling themselves all these ideas and then they believe it and then so they stay small. Which is, uh, unfortunate because at different times in our lives, there's moments where we can feel the momentum shifting and you want to be able to jump on that ride. But when our beliefs get in the way or when our own capability gets in the way, then it can really just stall everything. So that's what I do. I come in and I help my clients learn how to be a leader, how to stack up other leaders around them so that she has the time to expand her creativity.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And if that means writing a book, you know, going on television shows, being the sought after expert for news, being that speaker, hosting her own events.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: You know, like if she wants to move into that direction, there's no way she can do that if she doesn't have the right people on her team.

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Speaker C: Well, I think it's hard at first because everyone has one of those stories where they hired someone and it didn't work out for whatever reason, and so you ended up firing the person or the person ended up quitting, and then suddenly that you made that mean something about you. And often it's a negative thing that it's meant. So what we do is we start be a positive.

Speaker A: It could. How could it be a positive? I remember going to suppliers, like, going to the fabric to look for fabrics, and they would say, do you want me to send this over to Carolyn? Or whatever? And I'm like, oh, yeah, no, she's not there anymore. And I was so embarrassed. Like, I. I was positive. They were thinking, Kimberly can't keep staff. What's wrong with her? She can't keep her staff.

Speaker C: Well, unfortunately. Unfortunately, Kimberly, that is what people say. That is exactly what people say. And that's the detriment to her success. She was on this wild ride to build out this singular solo brand, Right. Also being incredibly overwhelmed, burnt out, problems with her home life because she's just so wrapped up in her business. She has no energy or even FaceTime with people. And People in her family. And suddenly she realizes, oh my gosh, I can't keep people. People are coming and going, coming and going. And every time someone quits, it's another stab to the heart, right? Because when she has crisis, because it is a crisis, like you're overwhelmed with

Speaker A: work, like, uh, you know, completely. I, I almost feel like I have PTSD thinking about this. And I, I'm remembering myself as a young mom taking my kids to the park and I wore a little rubber band and I would snap it and say, be at the park, be at the park, be at the park. Cause I'm thinking about as soon as, as soon as I can get these kids back home, I'm going to do the following things for work. And I was not present with my own children. And I tried the rubber band thing, which was painful and only worked for seconds.

Speaker C: You know, you are not alone, Kimberly. I've had clients tell me that they realized that they were rushing their kids to bed, like rushing them through dinner.

Speaker A: Let's go.

Speaker C: Wrap it up. Mhm. Wrap it up. Get into bed, read a quick story, lights out. And it was because she needed to jump back onto her laptop, right. And get going back to help set herself up for success for the next day. And you know, these are all very real experiences of successful women who have not stopped and asked themselves, hey, do I really want to do this alone? And typically the answer is no. So then we look at, okay, what does help look like for you within your business? And we start small, but we're very, very clear on what are the rules, including the roles that we want to grow into. Like, we might not have, we might not need all these roles right now, but let's start with a vision. Let's put a vision together and then let's start defining what those roles are and then let's get the right people in them. Um, and then once we have them in them, then it comes down to her learning how do I onboard this person, how do I start building relationship with these people where they say themselves, hey, this is going to be more than a job. I'm going to be able to build a career here and then they will want to stay. So a lot of it comes down to learning what is the vision of the business that you have, what is it that you're trying to build here? And that doesn't mean you have to build an empire. I have clients who have like three locations and then I have clients that have one location and they are very happy with that one location. And it all comes down to the season of her life. What is going to best fit the season of her life that she's currently living. Instead of thinking that you've got to, you know, success means multiple locations.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Success means national clients, exposure or whatever, all that, all that. It really comes down to saying, you know what, here's what success looks like for me now. So let's build that. And knowing that it can shift and evolve just like she will over time. But I tell all my clients, you know, once the leader evolves, so does the team.

Speaker A: That is so true. I will say that there are certain, let's say, bars which must be met if you are to be successful. And one that was elusive to me was the profit bar. If you own a business, you have an obligation to be profitable. And it's amazing how many women we meet who say the most ridiculous things about that, including myself when I was younger. It doesn't matter if I didn't make money this year because I'm learning and I'm having so much fun.

Speaker C: Fun.

Speaker A: And I would do it even if they didn't pay me. Shut up. Go play tennis. This is a real, our business. I know you work with other creatives and other service based industries, but if you're in the interior design, landscaping, architecture business, your work is freaking hard. And you, you have an obligation to be profitable. So. And you, you can't. That doesn't necessarily mean you need more people, but honestly, who wants to do everything themselves? I don't. I don't.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker A: So go ahead.

Speaker C: Everybody, uh, everybody initially thinks that they're going to do it all themselves. I'm going to work from home and I'm going to be flexible. I'm going to, you know, like wear my yoga pants and go for coffee every morning and go to the gym. And they have this idea of what small business is when it first starts. But if she starts to become successful, she quickly realizes, good grief, I can't do this alone. So then it comes down to finding the right people to come and join her. So the first thing we look at is where could we, um, compound her efforts? So where can we buy back some time for her? So where can we make sure that she is the one that's more front facing, that she's the one that's closing the deals, that she's the one that's out there creating the visibility, how do we get her that time? And so we usually look at bringing on somebody who, you know. And here's the biggest tip I can give to any of you in the design business? Because I have a lot of design clients. The first thing that is part of the criteria of people that want to come and join a design firm is if they, they don't want to have their own design firm.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Number one, uh, we need to dial into that early on through references, interviewing questions, coming back for additional interview questions. Looking at that first 90 days, you know, like, really trying to figure out, does this person really, is this person here to learn how to launch their own design firm? Yes or no? Because what you want is people around you who do not want to launch their own design firm. They want to learn alongside someone who is incredible within the industry and they want to be an extension of your brand.

Speaker A: Right. And they want autonomy, they want to succeed, they want wins. They want to know that they've impacted the group, the team in this amazing positive way. Right.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's another thing that, uh, I was so guilty of constantly micromanaging, creating a bottleneck where every single task had to come to me for approval. And of course I'm already overwhelmed. How am I going to do that?

Speaker C: No. Once you get to that point where you realize I am a control freak, also known as being the chief bottleneck officer of the business, that's when you know, okay, people are going to start quitting. People are going to start quitting because no one likes to have that choke hold every. Especially in a, in a creative in industry, people want to be able to be creative. So the first thing we need to do as you're starting to build out your team is first of all, you want to get freed up with getting rid of the admin time, the returns, the, you know, the running here, doing that, picking this up like we're getting rid of all those tasks onto someone else so that you can free up your own space in your own calendar to do the sales and closing the deals.

Speaker A: And I have a question for you about that because we run into this all the time. Well, I know we could get someone else to do that, but I actually don't mind doing it. I like doing that. I'm like, you have to sometimes let go of things you're good at and that you like because they are tedious, low level tasks that someone else can do well. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah. I call that knowing your highest valued work. So you said earlier, Kimberly, as a business owner, you have an obligation to be profitable. The only way you're going to be profitable is if the majority of your time is spent doing your highest valued work. Meaning the Work that only you can do. So how do we do that? We have to teach our team at, ah, every role in every level. What is your brand aesthetic? What are your preferences? What are your standards? What are your safety quality compliance regulations look like? Like, how do we do it the Kimberly way. Now, does that mean this person can't have their own identity? No, it means they can also build in some of their flair as long as it meets the brand's aesthetic. So a lot of my, um, design firms that do installations, one of the things they really work hard on is building out this incredible installation team, which allows her not to be there on every installation. Right. Like, there's some installations that, yes, you want to be there for, but there's many that it is just simply not required. But if you have someone who's an extension of you and your brand, who the client, by the way, has built a relationship with throughout the project, and then you have an incredible installation team who knows your standards. And what I mean by standards, I mean by, here's how we fold towels in an ensuite.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Here's how we set the bed. Here's how we set up the kitchen cabinets. Once you know what those are with pictures, trainings, practices, reviews, proof. Photos of proof, you know, so when you do a debrief after a project, you can give them that feedback, you know, oh, my gosh, this was so on point. This was a little drift off of our standard. Tell me why you went in that direction on that day in that installation. And then you hear the backstory. We didn't have this. We didn't have, you know, and that kind of uncovers some of the constraints that you have in your business. But as you teach your design aesthetic to your team, that's when you start to realize they really don't need me there. I don't have to hold their hand. They're smart people. I hire good, smart people who are committed to this brand, who also are bringing their own skill set. And when I teach them everything they need to know to how to be successful here at my design firm, then you can start to step back. Yeah.

Speaker A: All this is feeling so familiar. And it's amazing how deeply ingrained the kind of feelings of disappointment in myself or, you know, I just didn't know. I didn't know how to run the business. In fact, I remember there was a great. Oh, uh, God. His name is Brett Tinson. He's a great friend. Today he. He came to work for me. I almost didn't hire him because he I said, why don't you want your own firm? You're. You're way more talented than me like he is. He's just way, way more talented than me. Smart, cool, gorgeous. Like, why don't you want your own phone? He goes, I. Who would want to work for themselves? It's horrible. I almost didn't hire him. I thought it was a negative, and.

Speaker C: But it's. No, that's such a bonus. That is a bonus.

Speaker A: It was such a bonus. And he was so talented, and I learned so much from him. That's not necessarily typical, but it. It. I will say over and over again, I learned that I actually wasn't as good at something as I thought I was. When I let someone else do it and they brought. What did you say? Their flair, their style, the way that they did it, I'm like, oh, that's actually better. So there's that too, right? Like, there's the positive side of letting go as well.

Speaker C: Where do you start?

Speaker A: When you. When you enter, uh, the role that you take on with the owners you. You work with, where do you start for them? What's the. Like, let's do this exercise together first so I can diagnose what's going on here. How do you get that ball rolling?

Speaker C: The first thing I look at is her calendar. Where is she spending time? And then we look at the weight of the obligations that she has. So we look at how much help do you have at home? How much help do you have at, uh, like, in your business? And then we start to put the pieces of the puzzle together. So it definitely starts with her realizing that she's spending way too much time over here, when actually, here's where the business needs you to be if you're spending all your time over here. Checking, checking, checking, checking, checking. Hand holding, hand holding, hand holding. Driving, driving, driving. Picking this up, picking this up, picking this up. Returning that phone call, returning that. No, that's not how you grow a business. That is really not how you grow a business. Not at all. I know in the beginning it feels like it is because it just feels so busy and, oh, my gosh, I

Speaker A: have such a full week.

Speaker C: I'm just. Oh, my gosh, I'm just so busy this week, and it feels wonderful. But over time, that becomes annoying because you never have time to think. You never have time to plan. Everything feels rushed. No, you put together design, and it just feels, you know, you can walk away and think, that was not my best work because, uh, I was just piecemealing this Together and hone it in.

Speaker A: We used to say, I uh, just found that phone. I remember being in a team meeting and saying, just remember the bathroom we did for so and so, like do that, do that. It looks great. And everybody's looking at me like what's happening here? That's overwhelmed and that's not fair to the clients. Mhm. When you describe the high value work, of course it has to do with client facing. Well, I shouldn't say of course. I do know designers who aren't good at client facing. They actually have someone else who does it.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Let's just take that out of the equation. How do you identify your high value worth tasks? How do you know what they are?

Speaker C: I think it starts with understanding the industry that you chose to be a player in. So no more mediocre work, no more mediocre team members, no more mediocre clients, no more mediocre following a trend. We need to look to see what is happening in our industry right now and looking to see what's coming around the corner so that you can have an educated response to what's happening in your marketplace. Because your clients, let face it, they are hiring you to think for them. If you can't think for them, how helpful are you really? And the uh, more top tier clients that you serve, the more they're relying on you and they're happy to give you those budgets, they're delighted to be able to cut you those checks. But boy, they have standards and expectations. So if you don't, they don't want,

Speaker A: they don't want to have to make decisions and um, you know, meet delivery people and they're not going to do any of that stuff.

Speaker C: So no, they want to defer to you, defer to the expert. So guess what, you have to make sure that you're always an expert. You can't be a one trick pony anymore from like, from way back. We can't get into a way back machine. You have to be an expert who's relevant today on point as to what's happening in your marketplace. So if that means there's new technology, new methods, new vendors, new creative ways of piecing things together, new partnerships or even a new role on the team or a new way of developing your team, that's your highest value to work. Become the expert within the, the um, industry that you chose to serve and then the next area of highest valued work is being that servant leader. So how do I serve my industry? How do I serve up and coming people in the Industry and most of all, how do I serve my team? You want to build in those relationships with people in your, within your industry, the up and coming new people who are always looking up and adoring you. I mean, we started this call out, uh, today. I'm, you know, always a fan of Kimberly, will always be a fan of Kimberly. Like we know you have that kind of a following ship. So we need to give back to them. But more importantly, it's the team itself. How do I learn to become a leader that can develop the people around me so that they want to stay with me for the long haul? They're committed, they're loyal, they're continual learners, they have the enthusiasm and the energy and they're coming to me and saying, hey, did you hear about this? Hey, did you notice this? Hey, I read an article on this. Hey, I watched this. You, uh, know I went to this conference and I saw this. Hey, I found that on YouTube. So then you have this collaboration that's at this high level, which is helping you be that expert within your industry, which ensures your high rates, it ensures your top quality clients, it ensures a wonderful portfolio that is completely on brand with what your design aesthetic is. Mhm. And that's just going to keep that pipeline flowing through of clients as well as really great people that want to come and work with you because there's no confusion about who you are, what you stand for and what you do and what it'd be like to work alongside you, either as a client or as a team member.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny, right at the top of the show you said something about job descriptions. I did not want to write job descriptions because I thought I want them to do whatever I want them to do. I don't know what I want them to do. I want them to do everything. I don't know what I want them to do. It's incredible. I currently have the exact same team that I have had for 20 years now. And I have the team for whom I wrote job descriptions. I can't explain why that is true, but if you hated the thought of writing a job description as much as I did, I would strongly encourage you to write job descriptions even for roles you don't need. And uh, yeah, we put them in an operations manual. And then when we went hiring it was like, do they meet this criteria? No, she seems lovely, but it's not a fit. It just made it so much easier. We, we honestly need more time to talk about this and so much more when you come back. Another Time.

Speaker C: Absolutely. I'll come back and we can talk about how to make sure that your people that you have on the team know exactly what it is they're getting paid to do.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: What they're. What they're not getting paid to do. And then how do we hold people accountable? Because I have a few pet peeves in this industry after doing this for so many years, and I'm a believer that the majority of people in a small business are overpaid. Plain m and simple.

Speaker A: My worst hires were overpaid. My worst hires were people I threw money at and they were useless.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker C: Yeah, so they're overpaid because they're not meeting your base expectations anyways. And the leader is often tolerant with underperformers or they don't want to break, you know, break, you know, shook up the boat. You know, there's a million stories they tell themselves. But yeah, I'm happy to come back and talk to you about how do we build a team of wonderful people who are not overpaid. They know exactly what it is they're getting paid to do and they know how they're going to be held accountable. And they also know when's the next time I'm going to see my leader? When's the next time I'm going to have some one to one focus time with my leader? And how do I build a career here? I don't want, I just don't want a job. I want a career with this person. How do I make sure that I continue to add value to this team and ensure that I get to have a wonderful career here?

Speaker A: I love that conversation. Let's. We'll do that next. I know Cheryl's Charles listening. She's going to be taking notes and getting in touch with you. So yay, Cheryl. Speaking of great team members. Yay, Cheryl. Yeah. Yes. Okay. We like to end every episode with design intervention. Just a great piece of advice you want to leave everybody with, Shelly?

Speaker C: Well, I want to remind everyone that the team that got you here may not be the team that will get you there. And I say that every week on, um, my stack your team podcast as a reminder to people. And it all comes down to, as the leader evolves, so will the team. Because she's evolved. She knows what she needs now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: She knows what she doesn't need now. She knows exactly what she's going to tolerate and what she's not going to tolerate. And she knows now the people that she needs alongside her to continue to move the business forward.

Speaker A: I love it. I should have asked you off the top. Tell us the name of your podcast again. Tell us how we can get in touch with you.

Speaker C: The podcast is called Stacking youg Team. I've been on air now for over eight years.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker C: And, uh, the business is also called Stacking youg Team. Yeah.

Speaker A: I love it. I love it. Okay. I have a feeling people driving their cars and on the treadmill are thinking, I have to remember this woman, Shelley Warren, bought a businessofdesign.com More information about Shelley in the show notes. And thank you so much. And we'll have you back as soon as possible.

Speaker C: Happy to, Kimberly. Thanks, Shelly. Thank you.