After our big Interior Design Summit in late October, we spent a few weeks finishing the majority of the details of the Summit and then we began planning for Design Success University’s 2009 and beyond.

I told Erin that I wanted to make a major technology change with our website and “back end software,” and as expected, she looked terrified! She asked many questions and she shared her fears and concerns. We made the decision together, and as we mentioned in previous posts, we called a great friend, Janis, who has walls of whiteboards in her office and asked her if we could use her space to do our planning. It was absolutely incredible to go through that process.

Erin and I spent hours and hours at Janis’s office writing on her whiteboard, and it was truly liberating and fun. I know it may sound strange to many of you, but as soon as we were able to “see” it on the whiteboard, we were able to create “mind maps” and then identify the tools and resources we needed.

Erin knew the general idea I had for our business, but because I am the visionary, I tend to look at the “what we are going to do” and she is the “how we are going to do it” person. We had some fascinating conversations, and one of them revolved around her “getting the big picture” first and then going into the “how” part.

Here is why this is important. If you are the visionary, you need someone to work with you to make it happen. Erin is that person for me. She asks the “what if” questions that I rarely like to think about. I am the eternal optimist, and I tend to think anything is possible and looking at all of the ramifications of the decisions is like putting on a weight vest to me.

One of our favorite teachers talks about “starters” and “finishers.” I am a starter, and when I am at my best, someone else is handling the details behind me. When I get immersed in the details, I feel frustrated and stressed. Erin gets stressed if we don’t finish things, so she is the ideal partner for me. Which one are you, and who do you have to help you in your business?

Making the decisions about the “platform” or “technology foundation” for our business home is similar to what you need to do as you plan your business strategy for 2009. If you don’t have the parts automated that you don’t like to do, and you don’t have an Erin, you really do need to think about designing your business to include these elements.

One of our big goals is to automate parts of our business that required repetitive actions. We would rather spend our time creating programs and services rather than doing mundane administrivia. As with most creative types, we don’t love the picky details and learning HTML coding, editing, widgets, etc. We see those as a “means to an end.” The sooner we can get the technology behind us, the sooner we can concentrate on what we love to do most, and that is working with you to help you achieve greater success as an interior designer.

We began with the end in mind. Once we knew what results we needed, we started looking for the appropriate tools and then we looked for the appropriate team to help us pull it together.

We are thrilled to introduce our new look with the help of our new tech team in Florida: Will, Benji and Paul, and Zach in Dallas.

Let us know what you think of our new site…just be gentle…it is a work in progress!

The end result? We totally revamped our internal operations tech team’s help, and we’ve had to learn how to use at least 30 different tools in the last 5 weeks! Phew! We also realized that doing this between the holidays would be very challenging, but we also knew that if we wanted to start the year with everything (mostly) in place, it was essential. Being innately perfectionists, it is a challenge to accept progress vs. perfection, but as one of my teachers says, it is easier to shift gears in a moving car.

We’re looking forward to an exciting year with Design Success University and we are also looking forward to hearing your success stories.

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