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Welcome back to the Design Boss Dialogue Podcast, the Interior Design Business Podcast for women who are ready to build businesses that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside.
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I'm your host, Lise Marie Elkdrawi.
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And today I want to talk about something I don't think gets named nearly enough in this industry.
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I call it the void.
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And once you understand what it is, you will never look at your business the same way again.
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Now, here's what I see over and over: a woman is brilliant at transforming spaces.
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She's done her own home, she's helped friends and family, and every single one of them has said the same thing.
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You really need to make a living out of this.
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So what she does is she puts a couple of schemes together, she learns Canva, she teaches herself some design software, she goes on colour therapy courses, and she even goes and does a diploma, or some women even go on and do a degree.
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And she thinks, right, I'm qualified now, this is the time I need to get some clients and start making money.
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And that's exactly where the void opens up beneath her feet.
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Because closing that void was never only about strategy, it's about the internal work too.
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And today I want to give both the attention they deserve.
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So, you know me, I love an image and a tangibility for when I describe things, but I want you to picture a ladder.
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And at the very bottom sits the interior designer, and at the very top sits the interior design business owner.
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And every single run in between, that entire climb, that's the void.
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Okay?
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So if you imagine the top and the bottom, everything in between is the void.
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The void is where self-doubt starts to build up and live.
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It's where self-limiting beliefs quietly start to take root, where imposter syndrome bubbles up and sometimes refuses to leave.
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And it's not because you're not talented, it's because nobody ever taught you what actually sits between being good at design and being a business owner who can sustain herself from it, both the outer structure and the inner belief required to hold it.
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Now, here are some numbers worth sitting with, which actually, when I looked into the data, it ri, you know, this data really takes me by surprise and it makes me even more passionate as a coach and mentor to do the work I do.
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But ONS data shows that around one in five new UK businesses close within their very first year.
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By year five, roughly half have stopped trading altogether, and the steepest drop-off happens in years one to three, exactly where I see most designers stuck at the bottom of that ladder wondering why it isn't even happening for them at all yet.
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This isn't about talent because I meet so many women that are incredibly talented at what they do.
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So many women I work with are sitting in the void right now, and it's generally my life's work to help them climb out of it because they were never shown how to run businesses, businesses in design.
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And I want to bring in something I've spoken about before.
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If you follow me on social media over on my Instagram channel, maybe about two weeks ago, you would have seen me draw an example of this on my stories.
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But it is called the arc of opportunity, and there are five sections to my arc, the five C's, and it's something that I bring into all my work and teach as a coach and mentor.
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But I want you to picture a semicircle above you, okay?
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Across that arc sit all of the places opportunity can come from.
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So this is your content, your network, past clients, developers, architects, estate agents, suppliers, referrals, any marketing you do.
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And underneath that arc sits a bucket.
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That bucket is your pipeline, and that's where the void bites hardest.
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Okay, that's that's what I want you to know.
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The void bites hardest in this bucket.
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So many women sit right at the bottom of that bucket on a wing and a prayer, hoping something is going to miraculously fall in.
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They market when they need a client, they go quiet the moment a project lands, then they scramble all over again the moment it finishes.
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That, my friend, is not a pipeline.
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You are starting from zero every single time.
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It becomes super exhausting.
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But here's what I want you to notice underneath that.
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So often, it's not that she doesn't know she needs to be consistent, it's that some quiet beliefs are living underneath the surface and they are telling her she doesn't deserve to take up space.
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Or that asking for that sale feels really uncomfortable.
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That's there is energetic work, that's mindset, and it's every bit as real, a blocker in your business as not having a pipeline or a pricing matrix.
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So let's talk about what actually closes the void, okay?
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Because I want to obviously educate you so that you understand what that needs to be.
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Because this comes down to two things working together.
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One is the outer foundations, which are the business strategy, and one is the inner energetics underneath them.
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And that is all of the mindset work that you do.
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The first foundation is getting crystal clear on your purpose, your clarity, and exactly who your dream client is.
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So you stop saying yes to everyone.
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This is also where you start exploring your zone of genius, the thing that's naturally, distinctly yours.
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Okay, what makes you you and what sits you aside from the thousands of other designers sitting on the shelf with you.
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But clarity alone isn't enough if the belief underneath it hasn't shifted too.
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And this is where your energetics and your mindset work has to sit alongside your strategy, not after it.
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So reframing the self-limiting beliefs that whisper that you're not ready, working with your money mindset, so you can generally start to hold the types of money that come into your business once you figure your pricing matrix out.
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And generally starting to believe in yourself and owning your worth, built deliberately, the same way you build any other foundation in your business.
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So the clarity above with your purpose and getting crystal clear on everything is one thing, and that is great, but it's also working on the energetics with that as well.
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The second foundation is really elevating how you show up and build a genuinely magnetic brand, becoming the designer people actively seek out rather than the one quietly hiding behind her work.
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So many women are hiding, okay?
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And I feel it comes down to two things.
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Firstly, they don't understand what a visibility roadmap is, and secondly, because something in them still doesn't feel confident enough to be seen.
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That is not a content calendar problem.
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That's a self-confidence problem, okay?
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And you can't blame it for, oh, I really don't know what to do showing up on social media, so I might just post one thing and then wait for a while.
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This deserves real attention.
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Building genuine confidence, the kind that lets you show up consistently, not just on the days you feel super brave, is every bit as much a foundation as your branding itself.
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And that is something that's really, really important that you've got to know.
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The third is winning clients with simple sales systems.
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This is your discovery calls, your your genuine trust building and closing with confidence instead of just thinking, oh God, did I do a good job at that discovery call?
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And alongside that is really building structures within those systems that work around your actual life and your family, boundaries that you stick to and genuinely feel good for you.
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You can have the most perfect discovery call, but you can still fumble on the close on how to actually move that client from their discovery call into their consultation.
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Okay, because sometimes a part of you will quietly start to whisper that you don't deserve the yes.
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So you want to get off the call as quick as possible.
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And then sometimes you wonder why the client has ghosted you.
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Because the client can feel that you don't believe in yourself and your business, and you haven't gone through that call with the conviction to give them the belief that you can do this.
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Okay, so I really want you to sit and think about that because a simple sales system, your processes and systems also go hand in hand with confidence and how you show up in them.
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Okay, so can you start to see how this is all intrinsically linked?
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This is all linked from all of these little sections that I've said today.
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And this is why I have microtomitee, which is my whole six-pillar system, because everything bleeds into one another.
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Now, I want to share something with you honestly, because I think it matters more than almost anything else I've said today, and that is the cost that you are having on yourself.
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I've been coaching and mentoring designers since April 2024, and in that very first year, I met so many talented women who heard everything that I have just walked you through today and thought, do you know what?
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That actually sounds a huge amount of work to actually start to implement.
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So I'm going to carry on exactly as I am.
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And as I am also meant that they were still experiencing great feast and famine in their business, they were having clients that ghost them, they were still stuck trying to surpass 25k in their business.
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And I still speak to some of those designers now today, nearly a year and a half later, if I bump into them at events, or um, you know, they happen to message me or they see me on stories and they send a little message and you know, we'll have a little conversation.
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And they are in the exact same position they were back then.
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Some have closed their businesses, not because they weren't talented, it's simply because they didn't want to do the work of helping themselves grow and evolve.
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And I feel really saddened by that because I think if you're going to run a business, you've got to understand how to run it.
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And here's what I would love for you to really understand.
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The cost of not learning how to run your design business properly isn't nothing.
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It's actually severely costing you.
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You simply don't see it happening in real time because it shows up slowly.
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It shows up as stagnation, as feast and famine, as years passing with nothing fundamentally changing.
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But then there are so many more women that have said yes who looked at everything I've shared with you today and thought, I do want to give this a real go.
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And a year and a half on, some of those women are hitting their first 120,000 in their business.
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Some went from 24,000 pounds collectively across two entire years in their business to over 85,000 pounds in one single financial year.
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Not because they got lucky, but because they made a genuine commitment to themselves to run this business properly and to actually understand how to make it work, foundations and energetics together.
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So when I think about that void, the space between the designer at the bottom of the ladder and the business owner at the top, I'm saying this with love and I want you to hear this clearly.
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The void isn't closed by strategy alone, and it isn't closed by mindset work alone either.
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It's closed when both are finally given equal attention side by side, and when you make a genuine commitment to yourself to have a solid plan A, not a wing and a prayer, but an actual plan you commit to and follow through on.
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The women who are thriving right now didn't do anything you couldn't do.
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They simply decided the discomfort of building foundations was worth far less than the cost of staying exactly where they were.
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So if you've ever felt like you've either hit a ceiling or you are struggling in your business, or you have listened to this today and you think I don't have any of those in place, you simply have never had both halves of the foundation held together by a real plan.
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And that is entirely learnable starting today if you choose it.
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Now, this week for me is a particularly special week for exactly this reason because I am running one of the biggest boot camps that we've ever done, and over 600 women have already signed up to start building these foundations.
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And on Wednesday the 23rd, exclusively for the women that have joined the boot camp, I'll be extending a very special invitation of opportunity to join me on the next part of their journey.
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And this opportunity will only be open to 10% of the women that signed up to that boot camp.
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So if you're already in the boot camp and you're listening to the podcast, please keep an eye on your inbox this week.
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I'm very excited.
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And if you haven't signed up for the boot camp, but everything you've heard today has made you realise you're genuinely ready to make these changes, then I currently have one one-to-one mentorship space left in my diary for 2026.
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One space where I get to spend the next 12 months alongside you inside your business, helping you close this exact void for good.
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That is it for today's episode of Design Boss Dialogue, the Interior Design Business Podcast.
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And if this named something for you that you've been feeling for a long time, please share it.
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Take a screenshot, whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify, and share it to your Instagram and tag me in it.
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I would love to see.
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I'm Lisa Marie Elkdrowy and I will see you next week for another podcast.