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DESIGN CAMP TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Lindsey Brooke Design Episode Mentioned: Lindsey Borchard - Pricing as an Interior Designer Together, Lindsey and Anastasia have hosted hundreds of interior designers from every corner of the globe at Design Camp. Design Camp came to fruition based on our personal experiences growing seven-figure businesses in the industry. We felt the lack of a comprehensive, actionable and relatable resource to get started. Everything felt top secret, competitive and subjective. After working together for more than five years, we made it our mission to create an interior design retreat where designers can form honest, supportive relationships, create an accountable mastermind group, and be given the blue print they need to level up their business. Every session of Design Camp is different. The keynotes, the sessions, the people. We work diligently year round to keep Design Camp’s content of the moment and comprehensive. We’re grateful to welcome return campers alongside first time guests at every session. Design Camp is an immersive four-day retreat created specifically for the diverse interior design community. Founders Anastasia Casey and Lindsey Borchard, along with their respective teams, offer inspiration, insight, and empowerment through strategic business development discussions and guided implementation. Every detail of our luxury event is intentional, from the intimate grouping of campers to the inspired setting. Working sessions are punctuated by shared meals, cocktail hours, and keynotes from some of the industry’s most influential voices. Our mission is for you to leave Camp with an actionable plan for creating a design business that is more profitable, enjoyable, and authentic to you—with a network of likeminded friends to support you along the way, forever after. Transcript 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;35;13 Anastasia Hi, and welcome to this bonus episode of The Interior Collective, a podcast for the business of Beautiful Living. I'm your host, Anastasia Casey. And today we are talking about a very big passion project of mine, Design Camp. Together with my co-host, Lindsey Borchard of Lindsey Brooke Design, we are walking you through the infancy of Design Camp, how it started out, how it's transformed, and what the four day inclusive business retreat looks like today. 00;00;35;16 - 00;01;04;24 Anastasia Tickets are now on sale at Design Camp IDCO. Hey, Lindsey, and welcome back to the show. I am so excited to have you here. And there's nothing I love more than, like a secret bonus episode. I know. I'm so excited to be here. Obviously, I love your podcast and just love everything about the Interior collective. So I'm happy that we can have this kind of, like, conversation about Design Camp. 00;01;04;24 - 00;01;22;28 Lindsey And yeah, bonus episodes are always the best. I love how we can take a little bit of Design Camp and we'll get all into Design Camp a little bit later. But I do love that we can have even just this many one hour conversation to give people a taste of what Design Camp is really about. But if you haven't listened to it already, go back to season one. 00;01;22;28 - 00;01;57;00 Anastasia I'll link it in the show notes. Lindsey did an incredible episode about pricing as an interior designer, which proves to be one of our top downloaded episodes ever, and it's one worth listening to and relistening to because the way she breaks down, how she builds clients leaves no money on the table. She's getting every possible dollar from her clients in a very fair way, but B, it's also just mind blowing how specific and generous you are with your exact process. 00;01;57;01 - 00;02;17;26 Anastasia So we'll get into that a little bit more. But I do just have to start the show off by saying Lindsey is the most gracious and open business owner I've ever known. And additionally, she's just brilliant when it comes to running her firm. Oh, you're so sweet. You're going to make me cry today. Yeah, you'll probably cry by the time we get done. 00;02;17;28 - 00;02;45;03 Anastasia So. Okay, let's go ahead and start talking about Lindsey Brooke design and your design firm from the beginning. When did you start? How long have you been in business? And then we'll get down to, like, how many people are on your team now? Because I've just really seen it from its infancy. Yeah, I mean, I started this in 2016 and in a spare bedroom of my home, kind of a cliche story of I didn't go to school for this. 00;02;45;03 - 00;03;07;20 Lindsey I went to design school for fashion, did that a little bit, and then I, I randomly went into the wholesale side of an interior interior design company. Rachel Ashwell, Shabby Chic. So they, like, made their own products and they have their own stores. And so I did the wholesale department of that. And really that was my first taste of interior design. 00;03;07;22 - 00;03;31;10 Lindsey And even though it wasn't like my personal style, I really got the behind the scenes of how to make a product, how to put it together, how to put it together in a retail space with designers. So I don't have any formal training on interior design. And it's this business that was basically just built on a passion. And I was at that point a stay at home mom to my oldest son, James. 00;03;31;10 - 00;03;54;29 Lindsey I was pregnant with my second and looking back now, I probably had some postpartum with James that I didn't really realize, but I felt like I just didn't have the creativity in my life that I really did need. And I don't think I realized it at that time. And so my girlfriend was like, You should start a blog because blogs are like the thing back then. 00;03;55;02 - 00;04;22;28 Lindsey This is probably like 2014 and you know me, I don't like blogging. I'm like, That is not me. And I started Instagram and I started just posting things on Instagram, my house, my friends houses. I started getting referral clients from my friends. And then I started getting these E design clients from Instagram and I'm like, Googling what is E design? 00;04;23;01 - 00;04;56;22 Lindsey And that's kind of how the business started. It slowly snowballed from there. One referral led to another referral and one E design led to another E design, and then it kind of shifted to doing more like local clients and I remember at a point where it was like, okay, we need to possibly get a nanny. If I wanted to continue this because I was doing it like between nap time at night and I talked to my husband and he was super on board and super supportive and saw kind of like a spark lit within me. 00;04;56;24 - 00;05;17;26 Lindsey And so that's kind of how it started. Like, you know, we added a nanny one or two days a week and then slowly built on that and then had another conversation to say, like, Hey, I think I could do this full time. I think I can make a real business out of this. And that's when it really like that's when I say like, okay, 2016 was like really the start of the business, even though I had been doing it for a little bit. 00;05;17;26 - 00;05;47;00 Lindsey But I started in my house, you know, with an employee in my house, with young kids running in and out, crazy, not being able to focus. My garage turned into, you know, pillows and accessories and furniture and it just overtook the space. And, you know, now it's almost we're going into our eighth year this summer, and now we have a studio space and a retail store. 00;05;47;00 - 00;06;11;26 Lindsey And we have eight employees, nine employees, ten employees, if you include the shop, too. So it's just it's I am really proud of it when I really sit back and like, take a second. You know, there's still so much more that I want to do. And you know this I talk to you about it all the time, but I am really proud of where we started and kind of where we are right now. 00;06;11;29 - 00;06;36;18 Anastasia But yeah, it's been a journey, though, So to give a little background on how Lindsey and I know each other, if you had officially started in 2016, I think you would have reached out to me on Instagram probably 2017 or 2018. Yeah, I think it's just 2018. Yes. I've been following you for a while and I really just loved the content that you were pushing at that time. 00;06;36;18 - 00;06;53;10 Lindsey I had started. So when I started this business, obviously, like someone came and said like, what's E design? And, I had followed a girl that was doing E design. I don't know if, you know, she actually has a pillow company now. Daniel Oki Pillow Companies and E Design. I reached out to her to say, Hey, what is E design? 00;06;53;12 - 00;07;26;09 Lindsey And she just let me kind of know what she was doing. And then when I really started the business, I reached out to a couple other designers who I met through Instagram and they kind of opened up to me. So I started opening up on Instagram. Well as you know, like, I mean, social media just took up so much of my time and my business really started kind of obviously I had two young kids and so I reached out to you and didn't at that point, like, did it need a website or branding? 00;07;26;09 - 00;07;49;24 Lindsey But I needed help so much with marketing. And I remember it was like I was definitely one of your first hires, if you will, even though I was sort of a contract. But I remember like it was, I don't want to say it was a hard sell for me, but you were definitely like, This is a big investment. Like, this is a big thing for me to be hiring out. 00;07;49;26 - 00;08;11;11 Anastasia And you just were at that phase in your business where it was really like that first giant leap to be like, Hey, I'm going to invest this much in marketing dollars. And I just remember totally freaking out and being like, Oh my gosh, Lindsey's work is so beautiful. Like, look at what a cool California style she has. But I think we just really hit it off. 00;08;11;11 - 00;08;31;07 Anastasia So we had I think we had definitely exchanged DMS and we're like Instagram friends, but we certainly weren't close friends when you had initially reached out? No, not at all. I mean, I remember having that conversation. I think we spoke. I mean, I literally remember the day I was you. do too! I remember I was in the old kitchen before we renovated it. 00;08;31;07 - 00;09;01;14 Anastasia And I remember I was standing there, my living room facing, and I felt this like kismet energy, you know, And I just remember feeling like this is my girl, like, I just I felt like you were listening to me with like, I really was like, Hey, I really want to continue for my voice to be kind of like helping other people, you know, was still really young in my business and learning and making mistakes, but I wanted to carry that through. 00;09;01;14 - 00;09;19;08 Lindsey I was kind of just coming on and I don't even think stories were a thing. I don't even know. I kind of just came on and started writing captions about business stuff. And I think you were the first one that was like, you should start this thing called Monday mentors and kind of talk to. 00;09;19;10 - 00;09;42;26 Lindsey It was a fine line because I remember you saying clearly, designers are not your customer, so we can't just focus so much on designers. But it was so important to me that you found a way to incorporate that into my business model, which I just thought was like one genius, and to just the fact that you took something that was super important to me, even though you probably were like, This girl has no idea like that. 00;09;42;27 - 00;10;10;05 Lindsey This is not going to be bringing in the clients that she wants for her design business. But yeah, it felt just such an instant connection. And, I remember I had 16,000 followers. I remember talking to Quinn (husband) and being like, I think this is going to change the path of my business. Like I think I am so sold on just what you were telling me and the way you believed in my business, even though you really didn't know it. 00;10;10;06 - 00;10;26;20 Anastasia Like in the ins and outs, like you know, now, you know, it was just amazing. And it's probably one of the best decisions I made so far in my career. And like five years later, still, you know, and then just expand it. Anyways, I don't get into that. Okay. So I know, I know. Well, thank you for those sweet words, Lindsey. 00;10;26;20 - 00;10;54;26 Anastasia I just love you so much. But if you're listening and if you happened to notice one of the continuously weird parallels between Lindsey and I, she keeps referencing her husband, Quinn Yes, my husband is also Quinn. And that is just one of the funny little things that I've just always felt so connected to Lindsey. But she touched on how one of the pillars of her business has always been mentorship and education, and I think that's really like the infancy of Design Camp and this concept around it really started. 00;10;54;26 - 00;11;19;14 Anastasia I just loved that she was so open with her knowledge. I love that she was open with her struggles and I felt like there was just such a gap in the industry for it. So that's kind of a little preface, but I want to talk more about where your business is now, because I feel like your credentials are just so outstanding and you don't necessarily sing your own praises very often. 00;11;19;14 - 00;11;38;26 Anastasia So I do want to go over that. I mean, I think it's really important to mention that in these five years you are well into seven figures in your design firm and have been for years now. How many you said that you have ten employees, including the shop now at this point, how many clients a year are you taking on? 00;11;38;29 - 00;12;05;28 Lindsey We typically have anywhere between 10 to 15 projects at a time. I would say within a year we probably do anywhere between maybe 20 and 30, just depending on where we fall with some of our projects in a span of years. So it really just kind of depends on where those projects fall as far as when they end and things like that. 00;12;06;01 - 00;12;24;14 Anastasia So I feel like that's still small when I talk to a lot of people, even at Design Camp, like we have 30 projects right now, so we're really selective about and I feel, you know, it's been a privilege that we've been able to be really selective now on who we take on as a client because we're a small firm. 00;12;24;17 - 00;12;50;19 Lindsey I only have four designers plus myself on the design team. And so with these big projects, we want to make sure that we're not getting burned out, that each of our projects are getting the best of us. They're getting the best of things. But I think that it's really important to make sure when you get to a point, you know, we don't, we don't just take on large projects. 00;12;50;19 - 00;13;12;02 Lindsey We still like to take on smaller ones as well. What do you consider that like? What is the difference between a small and a large project? So the difference between like a quote unquote small and large part large projects are typically full remodels or full custom homes before the house down or starting from the ground up, or we're taking it down to the studs and redoing everything. 00;13;12;04 - 00;13;38;09 Lindsey Plus we're doing all the furnishings as well. So that's kind of what we usually tend to do between, I would say, three and five of those a year. Then more I would say maybe medium projects are we're doing full home furnishings, so we're doing 5 to 6000 square feet or more of a full home coming in and furnishing from top to bottom, maybe doing some like cosmetic, maybe…
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