To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community

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Introducing "To-The-Trade," the ultimate podcast for interior designers. Our mission: to provide business and productivity hacks for better work/life balance. Join industry leaders and experts as we explore trends, strategies, and practical advice. Elevate your design business, manage clients, build your brand, and stay ahead with technology. Achieve success and fulfillment in your career. Listen to "To-The-Trade" now!

  1. To-The-Trade S3E12 What Finally Going to High Point Market Changed About Rhobin DelaCruz's Business

    APR 27

    To-The-Trade S3E12 What Finally Going to High Point Market Changed About Rhobin DelaCruz's Business

    Rhobin DelaCruz has been designing for over 18 years, but he didn't attend High Point Market until about 2.5 years ago. The turning point was business coaching, specifically understanding that designers who build direct vendor relationships and sell to their clients themselves can capture 20 to 100 percent profit on goods, compared to the 10 to 20 percent that comes from sending someone to a retailer. That math made the trip worth taking. In this episode of To-The-Trade, Rhobin talks with Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson about how his approach to the market has evolved with each visit. His first was about observation. His second was intentional: meet the right people, make a lasting impression, and leave market with contacts who would remember his name. That shift in strategy set off a chain of relationships that has shaped his business in ways he didn't see coming. This spring, Rhobin is a High Point Market Style Spotter. He's leading a Saturday tour focused on just two showrooms, Classic Home and Sunpan, and plans to highlight the campus's outer areas that most attendees skip. His practical navigation advice: download the app, group your visits by building, and wear broken-in shoes. Fashion is a real thing at High Point, but the market day calls for comfort first. Some of his best advice is the bigger picture: go in with a strategy, but stay open to who you meet. That's how the Design Besties came together. Rhobin met Whitney Atkinson, Laurie Johnson, and Nikki Watson at the VRD Summit, and the four bonded on a group showroom tour at his second market. He started a group text after the trip. Two years later, they're in daily contact and serve as each other's informal board of advisors. From that group came the Teachers Lounge Movement, now a 501C3 nonprofit. When Nikki suggested designing a teacher's lounge for a local school instead of her own backyard, the group immediately said yes. The emotional reveal from that first project changed the trajectory of all four designers' work. Their High Point collaboration with High Point by Design brought in over 20 brands and more than $50,000 in donated furniture. The episode also covers how visibility in this industry is actually earned, why follow-up is the skill most designers undervalue, and why the path to becoming a Style Spotter or panel guest has nothing to do with paying to play. Rhobin's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhobindelacruzdesigns/ Website: https://rhobindelacruz.com/

    53 min
  2. To-The-Trade S3E11 with Juliana Ewer - Why Serious Designers Don't Skip High Point Market

    APR 20

    To-The-Trade S3E11 with Juliana Ewer - Why Serious Designers Don't Skip High Point Market

    Houston designer Juliana Ewer has been going to High Point Market almost every year since 2018. In this episode of To-The-Trade, she and host Laurie Laizure make the practical, financial, and professional case for why market attendance matters not as a perk, but as a real competitive edge. The conversation starts where Juliana always starts: product knowledge. You can't do a sit test online. When a client says they want a firmer seat or a fabric that holds up to daily family life, the designer who has been in the showroom and sat in the chair already knows what to recommend. Laurie adds that the market also helps you spot saturation. She walks through the boucle moment, when every showroom in the same year had the same off-white fabric, and experienced designers immediately clocked that it was already over. You only see that pattern from a bird's eye view. The quality difference between trade-only and retail brands is clear. If the general public knows a store by name, the company has spent a lot of money on marketing rather than on materials. The brands at High Point that don't run national campaigns typically reinvest that budget into the product. Juliana illustrates this with a vendor who, months after delivery, identified a frame issue from a single photograph and coordinated a full pickup and rework around her client's schedule, including a family wedding. That level of service is what protects a designer's reputation when something goes wrong. Practical market tips run throughout the episode: comfortable shoes, leave the laptop at home, let vendors mail the catalogs, and plan your showroom route around the education sessions. The 313 Space gets a recommendation for its natural light and boutique vendors. The Antique and Design Center at Market Square opens a day early on Thursday, and things move fast. Hooker's outdoor deck is the reset button when the day gets overwhelming. Juliana leads Insider Tours for High Point Market Authority and is leading a Hotspot Tour this year as part of the StyleSpotter program. She came to market for the first time as a new designer in 2018, went to every education session she could find, and met a stranger on the shuttle who became a lasting friend. The market is where relationships are built with vendors and other designers, and sometimes with the version of your business you didn't know you were building.

    56 min
  3. To-The-Trade S3E10 Know Your Worth and Say the Number: Pricing Confidence with Jill Erwin

    APR 13

    To-The-Trade S3E10 Know Your Worth and Say the Number: Pricing Confidence with Jill Erwin

    Jill Erwin started her interior design business in 2006, survived the recession, and recently hit the 20-year mark with a rebrand: Just Jill Home. She joined Laurie and Nile on To-The-Trade to discuss what it actually takes to get to the point where you charge what you are worth and stay there. Pricing was the throughline. Jill has spent years attending industry panels where designers reference rates without ever naming a number. Her take: just say it. Based on the market data Laurie shared, designers at the 20-year mark are operating in the $250 to $300 per hour range, with major metro markets pushing considerably higher. Jill confirmed she is moving toward $250 in Richmond and is clear-eyed about why: that is what her experience is worth. To give clients a lower-risk entry point, Jill developed two introductory service tiers she calls Quick and Fast (2.5 hours) and Short and Sweet (5 hours). Both were designed to let her assess a client's and a project's fit before moving into a full contract. If the dynamic feels off, she has a structured way out. If it feels right, she moves forward. The contract itself has evolved over 20 years, adding photography rights, scope protections, and other clauses she learned to include the hard way. Design philosophy came through in the specifics. She described a multigenerational family room near the Chesapeake Bay where she fit seven individual seats, a sofa, and a round leather ottoman into a cohesive plan, each piece chosen for how a specific family member actually uses the room. She also talked through a repeat client who came back after 15 years as an empty nester. Jill designed a custom coffee station with navy cabinetry and a bistro table, built around how the client now starts her mornings. The broader conversation circled back to the same point Jill has spent 20 years learning: designers who undercharge are not just hurting themselves. They are giving away equity that belongs in their own businesses and households. The client benefits. The designer absorbs the cost. Jill's new website, Just Jill Home, launches May 1, 2026. She can be found on Instagram at [@justjillhome](https://www.instagram.com/justjillhome/).

    56 min
  4. To-The-Trade S3E09 Style Over Trend: Artisan Collaboration and High-End Design with Maria Khouri

    MAR 30

    To-The-Trade S3E09 Style Over Trend: Artisan Collaboration and High-End Design with Maria Khouri

    Maria Khouri grew up in Beirut during Lebanon's 15-year civil war, moving 12 times in 10 years. She has spent her career making homes in San Francisco that feel like exactly that: home. Her boutique firm handles high-end residential work across the US and into Europe, and her commercial clients hire her for the same reason her residential clients do. They want spaces that feel personal. In this episode, Maria walks through the elements that define her practice. Every project includes one piece made by a Lebanese artisan, a signature Easter egg that connects her two countries and opens clients' eyes to artists and art forms they have never encountered. Her onboarding process relies on a 20-slide visual presentation that shows clients exactly what working with her entails, from mood boards to reveal day. She credits this tool with a measurable improvement in her closing rate. The pricing conversation is one of the most honest in recent memory. Maria charges $300/hour in San Francisco and argues that even flat-fee designers should know their effective hourly rate. Without that math, she says, you are likely leaving money on the table and will not know why. Nile and Laurie weigh in from their own experience, and the tension is productive. There are real reasons to charge both ways. The key is knowing what you are actually earning. The highlight of the episode is the story about the Hermes scarf. A Los Altos Hills client asked Maria to translate a framed Hermes scarf into a foyer floor. The result was a custom marble mosaic featuring 25 different stone colors, designed in collaboration with an Italian artisan who flew his team to California for the installation. The client still talks about it. Maria also shares how she uses AI for renderings and elevations without compromising her design process or her clients' IP. She is thoughtful about what she will and will not give a platform access to, and that carefulness is a lesson for any firm. Trust your gut on clients, she says. The same goes for the tools you let into your business. Quick-fire round: bouclé is overused, invest in antiques, wallpaper never gets old, and please pay attention to your outlets and plugs. Visit Maria at [mariakhouri.com](https://www.mariakhouri.com/) and follow her work on Instagram at [@mariakinteriors](https://www.instagram.com/mariakinteriors/).

    54 min
  5. To-The-Trade S3E08 Kelly Collier-Clark on Confidence, Career Pivots, and Charging What You're Worth

    MAR 23

    To-The-Trade S3E08 Kelly Collier-Clark on Confidence, Career Pivots, and Charging What You're Worth

    Kelly Collier-Clark of House of Clark Interiors came to interior design after nearly 20 years in corporate America, a real estate license, and a full life lived before she ever took her first design client. When House Beautiful named her a Next Wave Designer, she found out at a restaurant and cried in the bathroom. It was earned. In this conversation with Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson, Kelly gets into the real work behind confidence, the business logic behind marketing strategy, and why pricing clarity is a professional responsibility, not just a personal choice. On confidence: Kelly is direct. She did the work. Temple University's design program. Paid mentorship. Years of corporate experience in rooms where she was often the only woman and the only Black woman. The confidence she brought to design didn't come out of nowhere. And her message to newer designers is consistent: faith without works is dead. Show up, do the work, and the confidence follows. On strategy: Laurie opens with a marketing story about a small bikini brand that infiltrated a celebrity's inner circle before going directly to the celebrity. Kelly connects it to the sphere-of-influence principles from her real estate training. Know your ideal client. Know where they spend time. Be in those rooms. She's moved intentionally to LinkedIn because that's where her former corporate colleagues, the professionals with real budgets, are spending time. On showing up as yourself: Kelly's best content advice is also her clearest. Clients are doing research before they ever reach out. They're watching your stories. She's had new clients mention her honeymoon location in the first consultation. That level of trust doesn't come from AI-generated captions. It comes from consistently showing up and being authentic over time. On pricing: No designer should charge less than $100/hour. Kelly takes it further: lowballing doesn't just hurt the individual designer. It sets a market standard that affects everyone. New designers especially need to hear this. Running a project doesn't get easier just because you're newer. If anything, it's harder. Charge accordingly. The conversation also covers the "free design" offered by big-box retailers, why it's furniture sales, not design, and how smart designers can use quality comparisons as direct content to attract the right clients. Find Kelly at House of Clark Interiors and on Instagram @kellycollierclark.

    58 min
  6. To-The-Trade S3E07 Valuing Yourself and Setting Boundaries That Stick with Laura Hildebrandt

    MAR 17

    To-The-Trade S3E07 Valuing Yourself and Setting Boundaries That Stick with Laura Hildebrandt

    Laura Hildebrandt of Interiors by LH joins Laurie Laizure to share how she built a thriving interior design business in the DC area after a divorce left her a single mom of three with no work history or industry background. Starting with home staging in 2013 using furniture from her own house, Laura taught herself design at night, funded her early business on credit cards, and gradually transitioned into full-service interior design. The conversation covers Laura's pricing journey from $75/hour to her current rate of $250, with plans to raise it again. Laurie reinforces that no designer should be under $100 an hour and shares a cautionary story about a builder who tried to pay a designer less than minimum wage for full design services on $5 million homes. Laura walks through her client process: a free 15-minute phone call, a $600 two-hour in-home consultation, and an in-person contract review. She reports a 95% close rate and typically walks out with a signed contract and retainer the same day. Her 15-page contract covers everything from communication expectations to liability protections. Boundaries are a major theme. Laura does not text clients, keeps firm phone hours (9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.), and gives herself 48 hours to respond to email, all of which are written into her contract. Both Laura and Laurie discuss how women in the industry are often pressured to undervalue their work, whether through lowball builder offers, "carrot opportunities" that never materialize, or clients who try to deduct losses from design fees. Laura warns designers never to run subcontractors through their business without a GC license and stresses the importance of collecting fees before final installation. The episode closes with a strong message about work-life balance: exhausting yourself does not produce better work, clients will not remember your sacrifices, and the beauty of owning your business is getting to decide how you live your life.

    52 min
  7. To-The-Trade S3E06 Ann Feldstein on Why Women Supporting Women Is the Smartest Business Move

    MAR 12

    To-The-Trade S3E06 Ann Feldstein on Why Women Supporting Women Is the Smartest Business Move

    Ann Feldstein, founder of Moxie Marketing and a 25-year veteran of the interior design industry, joins Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson to discuss why women supporting women is one of the most practical business strategies designers can adopt. Ann's research-backed work on internalized misogyny explores how women unknowingly project societal biases onto each other, from judgment about appearance and life choices to reluctance to share pricing, proposals, and resources with competitors. She traces these patterns to early messaging, fairy tales built on female rivalry, impossible body standards, and a culture that penalizes women for being too direct or too confident. Laurie shares the example of Shelly Hudson's text group of 15 direct competitors who share everything from pricing to wallpaper installers. The result: stronger systems, higher prices, and better businesses across the board. The takeaway is that transparency between competitors is not a threat. It is a growth strategy. Ann draws on her experience as a CrossFit coach to illustrate the confidence gap. She consistently told women to add more weight to the bar because they underestimated themselves. Men almost always had to be told to take weight off. That same dynamic plays out in how designers price, present, and advocate for themselves. Nile adds that everything he learned about business came from women and urges the industry to acknowledge and honor what women bring to the trade. The conversation also examines how men can be better advocates, the AD100 gender imbalance, the "manel" phenomenon, the mental load women carry, and what happens when husbands join successful design businesses and try to restructure what was already working. Laurie announces plans to write personal recognition letters to 10 designers a month and highlights IDC's 15% profit challenge as a way for designers to strengthen their businesses together. Ann closes with a clear message: every opportunity to elevate another woman in the trade benefits the entire industry.

    57 min
  8. To-The-Trade Live at KBIS: Building Better Brand Relationships with Nikki Levy and Jenny York

    FEB 25 ·  BONUS

    To-The-Trade Live at KBIS: Building Better Brand Relationships with Nikki Levy and Jenny York

    This episode of To-The-Trade is brought to you by AJ Madison Pro, the industry's trusted appliance resource for interior design professionals. Recorded live on the floor of KBIS 2026, this special episode of To-The-Trade brings together high-end designer Nikki Levy and Jenny York, VP of Marketing for Currey & Company, for a candid conversation about what it actually takes to build lasting designer-brand relationships. Nikki runs a South Florida firm with 12 employees, 30 active projects, and $50 million in annual specifying dollars. She is direct about what she expects from brands: live people who answer phones, clean returns, MAP pricing that is actually enforced, and reps who function as educators rather than catalog-delivery services. Jenny explains how Currey & Company has built its designer-first reputation over 37 years, including 48-hour shipping, no minimums, no credit card surcharges, and freight calculators available before checkout. The conversation covers bad rep stories that cost brands six figures in lost business, what designers can do to build goodwill with brands they love, freight billing fragmentation and how to protect yourself, brand storytelling as a client sales tool, and why lighting should never be specced last. For designers looking to strengthen their vendor relationships, and for brands trying to understand what designers actually need, this is a rare conversation where both sides are in the same room and being honest.

    46 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.6
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Introducing "To-The-Trade," the ultimate podcast for interior designers. Our mission: to provide business and productivity hacks for better work/life balance. Join industry leaders and experts as we explore trends, strategies, and practical advice. Elevate your design business, manage clients, build your brand, and stay ahead with technology. Achieve success and fulfillment in your career. Listen to "To-The-Trade" now!

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